Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a French naval officer, scientist who studied the ocean, movie maker, and writer. He helped create the first successful open-circuit self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA), called the Aqua-Lung. This invention allowed him to make some of the first underwater documentaries.

Cousteau wrote many books about his underwater explorations. In his first book, The Silent World: A Story of Undersea Discovery and Adventure, he suggested that porpoises can use echolocation to find objects underwater. The book was turned into a documentary film titled The Silent World. Cousteau and Louis Malle co-directed the film, which was one of the first to use underwater movie pictures to show the ocean in color. The film won the Palme d'Or, the highest award at the Cannes Film Festival, in 1956. It remained the only documentary to win this award until 2004. The film also received the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1957.

From 1966 to 1976, Cousteau hosted a television series called The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. A second series, The Cousteau Odyssey, aired from 1977 to 1982 on public TV stations.

Biography

The sea, the great unifier, is man's only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: We are all in the same boat.

Jacques-Yves Cousteau was born on 11 June 1910 in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, Gironde, France, to Daniel Cousteau and Élisabeth Duranthon. He had one brother, Pierre-Antoine. Cousteau completed his early education at the Collège Stanislas in Paris. In 1930, he entered the École navale and graduated as a gunnery officer. However, an automobile accident that broke both his arms ended his career in naval aviation. The accident forced Cousteau to change his plans to become a naval pilot, so he then pursued his passion for the ocean.

In Toulon, where he served on the Condorcet, Cousteau conducted his first underwater experiments, thanks to his friend Philippe Tailliez, who lent him some Fernez underwater goggles in 1936. These goggles were early versions of modern swimming goggles. Cousteau also worked for the information service of the French Navy and was sent on missions to Shanghai and Japan (1935–1938) and the USSR (1939).

On 12 July 1937, he married Simone Melchior, his business partner, with whom he had two sons, Jean-Michel (born 1938) and Philippe (1940–1979). His sons participated in the adventures of the Calypso. In 1991, six months after Simone’s death from cancer, he married Francine Triplet. They already had a daughter, Diane Cousteau (born 1980), and a son, Pierre-Yves Cousteau (born 1982, during Cousteau’s first marriage).

The years of World War II were important for the history of diving. After the armistice of 1940, the family of Simone and Jacques-Yves Cousteau took refuge in Megève, where he became friends with the Ichac family, who also lived there. Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Marcel Ichac shared a goal to show the public places that were hard to reach—for Cousteau, the underwater world, and for Ichac, the high mountains. The two neighbors won the first shared prize at the Congress of Documentary Film in 1943 for the first French underwater film, Par dix-huit mètres de fond (18 meters deep), made the previous year in the Embiez islands in Var with Philippe Tailliez and Frédéric Dumas. They used a special camera case developed by engineer Léon Vèche.

In 1943, they made the film Épaves (Shipwrecks), in which they used two of the first Aqua-Lung prototypes. These prototypes were created in Boulogne-Billancourt by the Air Liquide company, following instructions from Cousteau and Émile Gagnan.

Cousteau maintained connections with English speakers (he spent part of his childhood in the United States and usually spoke English) and with French soldiers in North Africa (under Admiral Lemonnier). Jacques-Yves Cousteau (whose villa "Baobab" in Sanary, Var, was across from Admiral Darlan’s villa "Reine") helped the French Navy reunite with the Allies. He led a commando operation against Italian espionage services in France and received several military decorations for his actions. At that time, he avoided his brother Pierre-Antoine Cousteau, who edited the collaborationist newspaper Je suis partout (I am everywhere) and was sentenced to death in 1946. This sentence was later changed to a life sentence, and Pierre-Antoine was released in 1954.

During the 1940s, Cousteau improved the Aqua-Lung design, which led to the open-circuit scuba technology used today. According to his first book, The Silent World: A Story of Undersea Discovery and Adventure (1953), Cousteau began diving with Fernez goggles in 1936 and used the self-contained underwater breathing apparatus invented in 1926 by Commander Yves le Prieur in 1939. He was not satisfied with how long he could stay underwater with the Le Prieur apparatus, so he added a demand regulator, invented in 1942 by Émile Gagnan, to extend underwater time. In 1943, Cousteau tested the first Aqua-Lung prototype, which made long underwater exploration possible. In 1994, Hans Hass claimed he was the first to use a mobile, self-contained diving apparatus and told Jacques-Yves Cousteau about it.

In 1946, Cousteau and Tailliez showed the film Épaves to Admiral Lemonnier, who gave them the task of creating the GRS (Underwater Research Group) for the French Navy in Toulon. Later, it became the GERS (Underwater Studies and Research Group), then the COMISMER (Undersea Interventions Command), and finally the CEPHISMER (Expert Centre for Human Diving and Undersea Intervention). In 1947, Chief Petty Officer Maurice Fargues became the first diver to die using an Aqua-Lung while attempting a new depth record of 120 meters near Toulon with the GERS.

In 1948, between missions of mine clearance, underwater exploration, and tests, Cousteau led a campaign in the Mediterranean on board the sloop Élie Monnier with Philippe Tailliez, Frédéric Dumas, Jean Alinat, and scenario writer Marcel Ichac. The team also explored the Roman wreck of Mahdia (Tunisia), marking the first underwater archaeology operation using autonomous diving. This opened the way for scientific underwater archaeology. Cousteau and Marcel Ichac returned with the Carnets diving film, which was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 1951.

Cousteau and the Élie Monnier then helped rescue Professor Jacques Piccard’s bathyscaphe, the FNRS-2, during the 1949 expedition to Dakar. This rescue allowed the French Navy to reuse the bathyscaphe’s sphere to build the FNRS-3.

The adventures of this period are described in two books: The Silent World (1953, by Cousteau and Dumas) and Plongées sans câble (1954, by Philippe Tailliez).

In 1949, Cousteau left the French Navy.

In 1950, he founded the French Oceanographic Campaigns (FOC) and leased a ship called Calypso from Thomas Loel Guinness for one franc a year. He refitted the Calypso as a mobile laboratory for research and as his main vessel for diving and filming. He also conducted underwater archaeological excavations in the Mediterranean, including at Grand-Congloué (1952).

With the publication of his first book in 1953, The Silent World, Cousteau correctly predicted that porpoises could use echolocation. He reported that his research vessel, the Élie Monier, was heading to the Straits of Gibraltar when a group of porpoises

Death and legacy

Jacques-Yves Cousteau died from a heart attack on June 25, 1997, in Paris, two weeks after his 87th birthday. He was buried in the family tomb at Saint-André-de-Cubzac, where he was born. The town honored him by naming the street near his birthplace "rue du Commandant Cousteau" and placing a commemorative plaque there.

Cousteau’s legacy includes over 120 television documentaries, more than 50 books, and an environmental protection foundation with 300,000 members.

Cousteau referred to himself as an "oceanographic technician." In reality, he was a skilled presenter, teacher, and lover of nature. His work helped many people learn about the resources of the oceans.

His work also introduced a new way of sharing scientific ideas, called "divulgationism." This method, which simplified scientific concepts, was later used in other fields and became a key part of modern television.

His Oceanographic Museum in Monaco, and possibly Cousteau himself, has been linked to introducing the "Killer Algae" Caulerpa taxifolia, which harms the Mediterranean’s ecosystem.

The Cousteau Society and its French group, l'Équipe Cousteau, which Cousteau founded, are still active today. The Society is trying to turn the original Calypso ship into a museum and is raising money to build a new ship, Calypso II.

In 2007, the International Watch Company released a special edition of its IWC Aquatimer Chronograph "Cousteau Divers" watch. The watch included a piece of wood from the Calypso research vessel. The company supported The Cousteau Society, and some of the watch sales were donated to a non-profit group that works to protect marine life and coral reefs.

Fabien Cousteau, Jacques Cousteau’s grandson, is building a group of underwater research stations called Proteus off Curaçao. These stations will be located about 20 meters below the ocean’s surface in a protected marine area. Scientists and divers will live and work in these underwater habitats. Planning for the project began in 2022, with the habitat expected to be completed by 2025.

In October 1997, a plaque honoring Jacques Cousteau was placed in an underwater dive park near Avalon, California. Because the plaque was damaged over time, it was replaced in November 2020.

Awards and honors

During his lifetime, Jacques-Yves Cousteau received these awards and honors:

• Cross of War for 1939–1945 (awarded in 1945)
• National Geographic Society's Special Gold Medal (1961)
• Commander of the Legion of Honour (1972)
• BAFTA Fellowship (1975)
• Officer of the Order of Maritime Merit (1980)
• Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit (1985)
• U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom (1985)
• Induction into the Television Hall of Fame (1987)
• Elected to the Académie Française (1988)
• Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters
• Honorary Companion of the Order of Australia (26 January 1990)

Media portrayals

Jacques Cousteau has been shown in movies and other media:

• The American comedy movie The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, directed by Wes Anderson and released in December 2004, features Steve Zissou, a fictional oceanographer based on Jacques Cousteau.
• The French film The Odyssey, directed by Jérôme Salle and released in October 2016, shows Cousteau’s life, including his relationship with his first wife, Simone Melchior, and his second son, Philippe Cousteau.
• Jacques Cousteau appeared in Season 6 of Epic Rap Battle of History. He was portrayed by Peter Shukoff and faced off against Steve Irwin, played by Lloyd Ahlquist.
• Jacques Cousteau is shown in the music video for the song "Jacques Cousteau" by Plastic Bertrand. In the video, he wears nautical clothing and lives in a fish bowl.
• Jacques Cousteau appeared briefly in the animated TV show SpongeBob SquarePants in the episode SpongeBob’s Big Birthday Blowout. He was portrayed as the French Narrator, a character who often speaks or appears in the show.