Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the French oceanographer who opened more of the Earth’s surface to human endeavor than any other explorer in history, died Wednesday at his home in Paris. He was 87.
Cousteau, who held no scientific degree, became a household name in many parts of the world through the enormously popular books, films and television programs that documented over four decades of undersea explorations.
His first book, The Silent World, sold more than five million copies in 22 languages. A film of the same name won an Academy Award for best documentary in 1957, the first of three Oscars that Cousteau’s films received.
Explaining the broad appeal of his work, Cousteau once said: “We are not documentary. We are adventure films.”
Cousteau’s adventurous spirit and mastery of the media brought him fame and fortune, but it also drew the envy of more conventional oceanographers, some of whom questioned the scientific value of his research, the authenticity of his film footage and even his record as a pioneering environmentalist.
His detractors notwithstanding, Cousteau’s reputation rests on an achievement of unassailable importance: He was the co-inventor and principal developer of the Aqua-Lung, better known as “scuba.”
In announcing the death, the Cousteau Foundation said, “Jacques-Yves Cousteau has rejoined The Silent World.”
Cousteau’s son Jean-Michel, who had clashed with him in recent years, said: “The work of my father was a hymn to life. On the wall of my office there is a quotation from my father: ‘The happiness of the bee and the dolphin is to exist. For man it is to know that and to wonder at it.’ “
Jacques-Yves Cousteau was born on June 11, 1910, in the prosperous market town of St.-Andre-de-Cubzac.
In 1930 he gained entrance to the French naval academy. After a car accident in which he broke his arms, Cousteau was posted to the naval base at Toulon. He began swimming daily in the Mediterranean to strengthen his arms, on the advice of Philippe Tailliez, a fellow officer.
The two friends teamed with a civilian, Frederic Dumas, to experiment with water-tight goggles in 1936.
The same year Cousteau met Simone Melchior; they were married the following summer.
Determined to dive deeper, stay down longer and see more, Cousteau and his friends began tinkering with homemade snorkel hoses, insulated body-suits and portable breathing devices based on the recent invention of the compressed air cylinder. The onset of World War II did not halt his explorations.
While remaining in the navy _ and later spying on Italian occupation forces for the French Resistance _ he found time to continue his search for a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus.
Cousteau and engineer Emile Gagnan adapted an automatic valve of Gagnan’s design to the tricky task of feeding compressed air to a diver on demand and at the pressure of the surrounding water. They patented their device as the “Aqua-Lung.”
By the end of the war his wife was an accomplished diver; Cousteau even fashioned miniature Aqua-Lungs for their two sons, Jean-Michel, born in 1938, and Philippe, born in 1940.
Aboard a converted 66-foot mine sweeper that he rechristened Calypso, Cousteau and a loyal crew that included his wife and Dumas began searching the world’s oceans for new arenas to demonstrate the latest underwater technology.
The 1953 publication of The Silent World, a first-person account detailing the development and promise of scuba diving, made Cousteau a celebrity.
In March 1955 the Calypso left Marseilles on a 13,800-mile voyage to the coral reefs of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. With support from the French government and the National Geographic Society, Cousteau and his crew continued their research.
But the main purpose of the trip was to shoot spectacular color footage for the documentary version of The Silent World. That film took the top prize at the Cannes film festival and went on to win an Oscar.
A National Geographic television special led to a $4.2 million deal with the American Broadcasting Corp.; Cousteau agreed to deliver four hourlong television programs a year for three years, under the series title The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau.
In fact, the arrangement with ABC stretched over nine years; when it ended, Cousteau went on making documentaries, first for the Public Broadcasting System and then, starting in 1981, for Ted Turner’s cable TV network.
Cousteau’s interest in protecting the ocean environment grew stronger over time. In the ’60s he talked about the sea as an exploitable resource; by 1970 he was warning that life in the oceans had diminished 40 percent in 20 years: “The oceans are in danger of dying.” In 1974 he founded the Cousteau Society.
Cousteau’s later years were marked by professional disappointments and personal losses. His younger son, Philippe, whom he had annointed as his successor, was killed in a seaplane crash in 1979.
Jean-Michel, the older son, became heir apparent to the Cousteau empire, but father and son fought constantly over issues of management and policy.
In 1990 his wife, Simone, died.
In addition to his son, Cousteau is survived by his second wife, Francine Triplet, whom he married in 1991, and their children, Diane and Pierre-Yves.
