A Curious Young Man
As a young boy, Jacques-Yves Cousteau seemed to have a lot of interests. His schoolmasters called him a “natural troublemaker” because his love of exploration and experimentation often got him in trouble. While his natural curiosity seemed like a bad thing growing up, it led Cousteau to a life of unbelievable adventure, showing the world the magic that lay just beneath the ocean’s surface.
Born in France in 1910, Cousteau grew up fascinated with the world around him. He was naturally industrious and was always curious about how things worked. He learned to read blueprints at an early age and even taught himself how to build a functioning crane.
By age 13, he had built a battery-operated vehicle and soon became fascinated with movies and film. He even saved his allowance to purchase a home video camera. However, when he got home with his new camera, instead of filming, he took it apart and reassembled it—just to see how it worked.
While Cousteau always enjoyed being in the water, his time spent at a summer camp in Vermont solidified his lifelong passion. That summer, Cousteau was responsible for diving to the bottom of the camp lake to clean up the lakebed. Cousteau found so much joy in diving to the bottom of the lake that this “chore” became one of the highlights of his day.
Cousteau and Water
Many of Cousteau's navy friends became navy pilots and all but one perished during WWII.
At 20 years old, Cousteau joined the French Naval Academy and then the Navy three years later. He found great pleasure in sailing the seas and traveling around the world and, before long, had dreams of becoming a navy pilot. However, tragedy would strike, forever changing the course of his life.
During a car ride in 1936, Cousteau’s automobile crashed, nearly killing him. He survived the crash, but had two broken arms as a result of the accident. Soon, an infection began to spread through one of his arms, and doctors even considered amputation. Cousteau, determined more than ever to keep his arm, fought the infection and decided to take the long and painful road to recovery in order to gain mobility back in his arms.
His treatment consisted of swimming in the Mediterranean Sea every day to gently build strength. Cousteau’s daily swims gave him more than just his strength back—they reinforced his passion for the water and perhaps led him to question what lay beneath the surface.
Cousteau and his friends became obsessed with everything related to water. They would compete to see who could hold their breath the longest and how deep each of them could go. Cousteau even made a special case for his camera so he could take it in the water and snap pictures of the things he observed. But Cousteau always felt held back because he couldn’t be underwater for as long as he liked. He wanted more time underwater so he could observe his surroundings without the burden of returning to the surface for air. Soon his next project was underway.
The Aqua-Lung
While there was equipment that allowed divers to stay underwater for longer periods of time, the equipment was not reliable. The underwater breathing system during that time provided a constant stream of air to the diver, but didn’t account for the fact that the lungs need to inhale and exhale oxygen. As a result, divers had to turn the machine on and off as they breathed. Cousteau knew there had to be a way to create a machine that would allow for normal breathing underwater. His goal was to produce a machine that acted like a giant lung underwater.
In 1942, Cousteau became friends with Émile Gagnan, a French engineer who worked for a compressed gas company. Together, the two men quickly got to work. The goal was simple: create a device that allowed divers to breathe underwater for a prolonged period of time.
The device needed to be fairly simple to use and, most importantly, couldn’t be so heavy that it would drag the diver to the bottom of the ocean.
A year later, the Aqua-Lung made its debut. It was a small underwater breathing device that would allow a diver to spend up to an hour underwater while breathing at a normal rate. Within three years, the Aqua-Lung was being mass-produced and sold all over the world. After a while, the British decided to rename the Aqua-Lung to its current name: the Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus or SCUBA.
Diving was no longer for those with the strongest lungs, but was made available for anyone and everyone.
The Calypso
Although Cousteau had achieved his goal of being able to stay underwater for more than a few minutes, his accomplishment didn’t satisfy his increasing desire to know more about what lay beneath the ocean’s surface. But in 1950, Cousteau met the ship that would set his career on a new course. The Calypso was an old, decommissioned British minesweeper that was being used as a ferry. Cousteau purchased the ship and quickly transformed it into an oceanographic research vessel to carry out oceanic expeditions. Cousteau brought his entire family along on many of his expeditions, making his two sons cabin boys at the ages of 10 and 12.
The Calypso was 139 feet long and was home to up to 28 crew members.
Cousteau used the Calypso to explore anywhere there was water. He used his vessel to travel to the farthest corners of the world with the hopes of better understanding the ocean. Even with all the success and adventure that seemed to follow Cousteau, he felt that his discoveries weren’t worthwhile unless he had people to share them with. Cousteau decided to combine his love for exploration and film by making movies of his discoveries. His goal wasn’t to become famous, but to share his discoveries and show the world the underwater treasure trove he had come to love.
A Successful Film Career
In 1956, Cousteau released his debut documentary, The Silent World, the first film ever to be shot underwater. The film depicted what life was like for crew members aboard the Calypso and followed along as divers explored the ocean and swam with creatures never before seen on film. The documentary was a huge success and even won an Academy Award.
Throughout his lifetime, Cousteau never shied away from life on camera and used it as an opportunity to teach others what he knew about life beneath the ocean’s surface. For several years he starred in the American television series,
The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, which documented his dives, research, discoveries, and life on board Calypso. Throughout his career, Cousteau would participate in 115 movie and television productions, bringing the ocean up close and personal to millions of viewers around the world.
The Silent World was a book written by Frédéric Dumas about Cousteau, which Cousteau later adapted into a documentary.
A Legacy of Conservation
Although Cousteau constantly juggled filming, exploring, writing books, and diving, he found that all his work would be for nothing unless there was a way to protect the ocean. Conservation became a top priority for Cousteau when he realized that future generations would not be able to enjoy the same ocean he observed daily unless there were systems in place to protect the wildlife that called the ocean their home.
In 1973, the Cousteau Society was established as a not-for-profit organization focusing on exploration, protection of endangered species, and the education of children and adults about marine conservation.
In the years leading up to his death, Cousteau fought to protect sensitive areas from exploitation. Because of his passion and dedication to the protection of wildlife, he won many distinguished awards. In acknowledgment of his great achievements, Cousteau was awarded the United Nations’ International Environmental Prize, the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, as well as the National Geographic Society’s Centennial Award.
Even though he had an extraordinary career, Cousteau remained humble and stayed true to his passions for adventure and exploration.