Jacques-Yves Cousteau
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Jacques-Yves Cousteau (11 June 1910 – 25 June 1997) was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, scientist, photographer and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water. He co-developed the aqua-lung, pioneered marine conservation and was a member of the Académie française.
Cousteau was born in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, Gironde, to Daniel and Élisabeth Cousteau. He is generally known in France as le commandant Cousteau ("Commander Cousteau"). Worldwide, he was commonly known as Jacques Cousteau or Captain Cousteau.
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[edit] Brief Personal history
Jacques-Yves Cousteau was born in France to Daniel Cousteau (a lawyer) and Élisabeth Cousteau.
- 1930: He entered French Navy.
- 12 June 1937: He married Simone Melchior.
- 1938: His son Jean-Michel Cousteau was born.
- 1940: His son Philippe Cousteau was born.
- 1967: His grandson Fabien Cousteau (son of Jean-Michel Cousteau) was born.
- 1979: His son Philippe Cousteau died in a PBY Catalina flying boat crash.
- 1980: His grandson Philippe Cousteau Jr. (son of Philippe Cousteau) was born
- 1 December 1990: His first wife Simone died of cancer.
- June 1991: He married Francine Triplet. They already had a daughter Diane Cousteau (1980) and a son Pierre-Yves Cousteau (1982) prior to their marriage.
He died at the age of 87 of a heart attack while recovering from a respiratory illness. He is buried in the Cousteau family plot at Saint-André-de-Cubzac Cemetery, Saint-André-de-Cubzac, France.
[edit] Early life
In 1930, Cousteau was admitted to the École Navale (Naval Academy) in Brest and became a gunnery officer of the French Navy, which gave him the opportunity to make his first underwater experiments. He was training to become a pilot, but a serious car accident ended his aviation career. In 1936 Jacques- Yves Cousteau tested a model of underwater goggles, perhaps the ancestors of modern diving masks.
In 1937 he married Simone Melchior. He took part in World War II, and during the conflict he found the time to be co-inventor, with Emile Gagnan, of the first commercially successful open circuit type of Scuba diving equipment, the aqua-lung in 1943[1]. Among the things that prompted him to develop efficient air-breathing free-swimming diving gear, were two oxygen toxicity accidents that he had earlier with rebreathers.
After WWII, while still a naval officer, he developed techniques (including forming an unofficial clearance diver unit using his taccos) for minesweeping of France's harbors. He also explored shipwrecks.
In August of 1956, Cousteau and fellow diver Frederic Dumas explored one of the deepest known underground rivers, the Sorgue, at Fontaine-de-Vaucluse in Provence, France. During this expedition both divers nearly died[2] as carbon-monoxide had accidentally been sucked into their air intake from a diesel-powered air compressor used to fill their aqua-lung, which they had recently pioneered. When the divers became lethargic and disoriented at a depth of 150 feet (46 meters) below surface, both divers helped each other get back to the mouth of the cave. Ironically, another set of divers immediately entered the water after Cousteau and Dumas had been rescued, nearly succumbing to the same problem. Cousteau would return with his crew to Fontaine-de-Vaucluse in 1967 and his robotic Télénaute[3], a remote-control mini submarine guided by a tethered cord, to continue the quest to find the origin of the river. Cousteau guided the Télénaute to a depth of 347 feet (106 meters) before reaching an impass.
Subsequently, Cousteau made an underwater film called Épaves (Shipwrecks). While planning to make it, he found that under postwar shortages, unexposed movie film was impossible to buy, so his wife had to make movie reels by gluing together end-to-end dozens of small short unexposed film reels intended for children's toy cameras. Showing this film proved vital in persuading the French Navy to make official his unofficial diving capsule.
[edit] Exploration on the Calypso
In 1950, shortly after Cousteau's 40th birthday, Loel Guinness (who was named the president of the French Oceanographic Campaigns) bought the ex-Royal Navy minesweeper Calypso when it was doing service as a ferry between Malta and Gozo. Guinness leased it to Cousteau for a symbolic one franc a year.
In the Calypso Cousteau visited the most interesting waters of the planet, including some rivers. During these trips he produced many books and films. Cousteau won three Oscars for The Silent World (1956), The Golden Fish, and World Without Sun (1964), as well as many other top awards including the Palme d'Or in 1956 at the Cannes Film Festival. His work did a great deal to popularize knowledge of underwater biology and was featured in the long-lived documentary television series The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau which began in 1966.
In the mid-1950s, Cousteau had worked with Luis Marden aboard the Calypso, in which they pioneered new techniques in underwater photography. In 1963, along with Jean de Wouters, Cousteau developed the underwater camera named "Calypso-Phot" which was later licensed to Nikon and became the "Calypso-Nikkor" and then the Nikonos. Together with Jean Mollard, he created the SP-350, a two-man submarine that could reach a depth of 350 m below the ocean's surface. The successful experiment was soon repeated in 1965 with two submarines that reached 500 m depth.
In 1957, Cousteau was made director of the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco, created the Underseas Research Group in Toulon, was the leader of the Conshelf Saturation Dive Program (long-term immersion experiments, the first manned undersea colonies) and was one of the few foreigners who has been admitted to the American Academy of Sciences. The Calypso was later sunk in a Singapore harbor, when it collided with a barge. It was later refloated and moved to France, where there are hopes of restoring it.
[edit] Marine conservation
Cousteau's popularity was decreasing. In October 1960, a large amount of radioactive waste was going to be discarded in the sea by the European Atomic Energy Community. Cousteau organized a publicity campaign which gained wide popular support. The train carrying the waste was stopped by women and children sitting on the railway, and it was sent back to its origin. The risk was avoided. During this, a French government man had said falsely to a newspaper that Cousteau had approved the dump; Cousteau managed to get the newspaper to issue a correction. In November 1960 in Monaco, an official visit by the French president Charles de Gaulle turned into a debate on the events of October 1960 and on nuclear experiments in general. The French ambassador already had suggested that Prince Rainier avoid the subject, but the president allegedly asked Cousteau in a friendly manner to be kind toward nuclear researchers, to which Cousteau allegedly replied: "No sir, it is your researchers that ought to be kind toward us."
In 1973, along with his two sons, and Frederick Hyman who was the first President, he created the Cousteau Society for the protection of ocean life; it now has more than 300,000 members.
In 1977, together with Peter Scott, he received the UN international environment prize.
In 1985 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Ronald Reagan.
In 1992 he was invited to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the United Nations' international conference on environment and development, and then he became a regular consultant for the UN and the World Bank.
[edit] Legacy
Cousteau liked to call himself an "oceanographic technician." He was, in reality, a sophisticated lover of nature. His work permitted many people to explore the resources of the "blue continent."
His work also created a new kind of scientific communication, criticised at the time by some academics. The so-called "divulgationism," a simple way of sharing scientific concepts, was soon employed in other disciplines and became one of the most important characteristics of modern TV broadcasting.
In 1975, folk singer John Denver composed the song "Calypso" as a tribute to Cousteau and his research ship Calypso. The song reached the number one position on the Billboard 100 charts.
In his last years, after marrying again, Cousteau became involved in a legal battle with his son Jean-Michel over the use of the Cousteau name, resulting in Jean-Michel Cousteau being ordered by the court not to encourage confusion between his for-profit business and his father's non-profit endeavours. On January 11, 1996, the Calypso sank in Singapore harbour. Cousteau died on June 25, 1997. The Cousteau Society and its French counterpart Equipe Cousteau, which Jacques-Yves Cousteau founded, are still active today.
[edit] Pop Culture References
The French protagonist in the 1963 Film The Pink Panther was named Inspector Jacques Clouseau.
The 2004 film, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, directed by Wes Anderson, is regarded as both an homage and send-up of Cousteau's career.
In an episode of the TV show "Friends", Phoebe thinks she has subconsciously developed a crush on Jacques Cousteau.
In an episode of the cartoon TV show Pinky and the Brain, Brain claims to be Jacques Cousteau when his submarine is radioed and asked who it was driving it.
In an episode of the Earthworm Jim cartoon, titled "The Sword of Righteousness", Psy-Crow remarks to Jim (just before squashing him with a spectral hand): "You're goin' down like Jacques Cousteau!".
In an episode of the Tracy Ulman Show, on the Simpsons short "Bathtime", Bart Simpsons mimics Jacques Cousteau in the bath tub, first aired on 03/08/1989.
[edit] Tributes
In Star Trek: The Next Generation, a shuttlecraft carried aboard USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D bears his name.
Two New Age composers, Vangelis (who was heavily involved with Cousteau in the 1990s) and Jean Michel Jarre, released two albums including original numbers honoring Jacques-Yves Cousteau, titled Cousteau's Dreams (2000) and En Attendant Cousteau (1990), respectively.
The John Denver song "Calypso" is a tribute to Cousteau. It was first released on the album Windsong in 1975.
Gwar wrote a tribute song to Jacques-Yves Cousteau.
American poet Adrienne Rich refers in her poem "Diving into the Wreck" to Cousteau and his "assiduos team" published in 1973.
The Incubus song "Nice to Know You" features the lyric " Deeper than the deepest Cousteau would ever go".
The Wu-Tang Clan song "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" features the lyric "Jacques Cousteau could never get this low," sung by Ol' Dirty Bastard.
[edit] References
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The Cousteau Society
- About the Cousteau Society (A page by Robert Simms of Clemson University Mathematics Department)
- NOAA summary of Cousteau Society contributions
- Cousteau speaking to young people (.mov QuickTime movie, 1.6Mb)
- Short biography
- Obituary (CNN)
- Jacques-Yves Cousteau at the Internet Movie Database
- Find-A-Grave profile for Jacques-Yves Cousteau
- Jacques-Yves Cousteau (A brief biography by British amateur scuba diver Dave "Hooch" Hasney)
- Fact file by NNDB
| Preceded by Jean Delay |
Seat 17 Académie française 1988–1997 |
Succeeded by Érik Orsenna |
Categories: 1910 births | 1997 deaths | French marine biologists | Oceanographers | Underwater divers | French Navy officers | French people of World War II | Croix de guerre recipients | Members of the Académie française | Légion d'honneur recipients | Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients | Natives of Aquitaine | Underwater photographers
