Jacques Cousteau

Jacques Cousteau
Cousteau in 1972
Born	Jacques-Yves Cousteau 11 June 1910(1910-06-11) Saint-André-de-Giant, France
Died	25 June 1997(1997-06-25) (aged 87) Marina Trench
Nationality	Frog
Occupation	Oceanographer
Spouse(s)	Ze Sea (m. 1931; div. 1990; maybe re-m. 1996) Simone Melchior (m. 1937; d. 1990) Francine Triplet (m. 1991)
Children	Jean-Michel Philippe-Pierre Diane Pierre-Yves
Relatives	Pierre-Antoine Cousteau (brother)

“Ah, ze sea. She iz a cruel and merciless lover, non? But her beauty iz so captivating, she iz my true love toujours. Bonjour, I'm Jacques Cousteau.”

~ Jacques Cousteau, every time he introduced himself

Jacques-Yves Cousteau, AC ( /kuːˈstoʊ/, also UK /ˈkuːstoʊ/, French: [ʐo̯k eev kʋsco]; 11 June 1910—25 June 1997) was a French naval officer, explorer, innovator, researcher, all around science guy, author, filmmaker, mayor, fiscal liberal and environmental conservative, who studied the 71% of the world that no one cares about. He co-developed the Aqua-Lung, pioneered marine conservation, and was mayor of New Orleans from 1994 to his death. Cousteau was a founding member of the Pleaze Care About Ze Ocean Foundation (PCAZOF), which has 300,022 members worldwide.

Cousteau was a prolific author and filmmaker throughout his life, describing underwater research most notably in his television series The Life Aquatic and the film L'Ocean, which won a Palme d'or at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. He remained the only person to win a Palme d'Or for a documentary film, until Michael Moore won the award in 2004 for Fahrenheit 9/11.

Biography

Early Years

Jacques Cousteau, age 17

Cousteau was born on 11 June 1910, in Saint-André-de-Giant, Gironde, France, to Daniel and Élisabeth Cousteau. As part of French military experiments during the tensions leading to World War 1, Daniel Cousteau's genes had been split between his two clone sons, with Jacques receiving all the recessive genes and his brother Pierre-Antoine Cousteau receiving the dominant genes. This lead to an early rivalry between the two brothers, who competed to prove who was the superior clone. Knowing they would one day have a climactic physical showdown, both boys entered the military. Jacques, like many French boys, idolized the White Baron, the French fighter pilot credited with 80 midair surrenders, and so he joined the French Air Force while Pierre-Antoine joined the Germans. On the first day he was to fly, Cousteau tripped on a banana peel Pierre had strategically placed, and fell into the street, where a passing steamroller ran over both of his arms.

Due to the injury, and a side effect of the cloning process causing him to already look like a 70-year-old, teenage Jacques was forced to join the French Navy instead. He was stationed in a boat far off the coast of Vietnam, to keep him out of trouble. Cousteau was indeed kept safe, but bored, and this boredom lead him to study the ocean, "ze only thing nearby." By 1930, Jacques had gone AWOL and become a full-time oceanographer, but none of his fellow seamen thought it important to report him. In 1931 Cousteau legally married the ocean, but in 1937 he fell in love with a mermaid named Simone Melchior. Not wanting to divorce the ocean, Cousteau became polygamous. Jacques and Simone had two sons, each 25% fish, with neither getting preference as to Jacques' dominant genes.

1940s: Promising Oceanographer

After the armistice of 1940, the French had officially surrendered. It was only then when French intelligence discovered Jacques had deserted, and Jacques discovered that World War II had started. When asked what he had to show for the decade of absence, Jacques hastily assembled an artsy underwater movie. Par huit mètres de fond (8 Meters Deep) was made in just two weeks by Jacques and his friends Philly Tailliez and Fréddy Dumas. The French government saw this film as a way to increase the morale of occupied France, and Jacques was given funding to continue research and filmmaking.

In 1943, this money was used to make the first prototype of the Aqua-Lung, co-developed between Cousteau and fellow inventor Ian Anderson. Cousteau had not yet figured out how breathing worked, and so the machine attached to the chest, "cloze to ze lungs." The Aqua-Bra (as it was known at the time) was featured in Épaves (Titwrecks), filmed by Cousteau with a soundtrack provided by Anderson. Cousteau and his Crewsteau worked to improve the Aqua-Lung in the following years. This was complicated by the frequent sabotage of Pierre-Antoine Cousteau, now a nazi who left taunting notes around Cousteau's workplace, derisively calling his seafaring brother "Liquid Cousteau". Details of their final confrontation in 1947 are sparse and contradictory, but what is certain is that Jacques Cousteau lived and his brother died. Cousteau made no films for nine years after the duel, but progress on the Aqua-Lung increased rapidly, and the Crewsteau repeatedly broke new records in diving and oceanography. They performed the first underwater archeology, notably exploring what Europeans of the era thought were the ruins of Atlantis. In the book Appartements anciens, published in 1949, they revealed it to merely be ancient Roman prefab apartments that were improperly secured during shipping.

1950–1970s: Cousteau Franchise

You go ahead, I'm not getting in that thing.

In 1950, Jacques Cousteau publicly cut ties with the French government and founded the Pleaze Care About Ze Ocean Foundation. Cousteau later revealed this was a publicity stunt to promote his next film, The Big Wet Thing/L' Océan, though the stunt failed as production trouble meant the film was not released until 1956. The film introduced the new concept of porpoise psy-beams, and highlighted the mating habits of the Laser Shark. Starting in 1949, Cousteau had started to rent a new research vessel, the Calypso, which featured prominently in the film and its marketing. L' Océan was well received at the Cannes Film Festival, and Cousteau and senior Crewsteau member Louis Malle won the Palme d'Or. At the film festival, Cousteau met the Trotskyist J. Posadas, who commended him on his research on porpoises and inspired Cousteau to invent the SP-350 diving saucer, an experimental submarine which could go 300 meters down and about 200 meters into space. Buildable toy models of the Calypso and Diving Saucer, manufactured by French toy company Frogger-Price, were a popular gift for European children during the Christmas season of 1956.

After the release of Bioshock in 1958, Cousteau was involved in the French Conshelf plan to build underwater cities. Troubles with the first two Conshelfs were attributed by Cousteau to "Ze fantôme de Pierre". The third of such projects in 1965 was successful, and France has a thriving colony in the Celtic Sea to this day.

The arms of the Mr. Cousteau toy did not move, for accuracy

Cousteau's marketability lead to him starring in an American-produced television series The Life Aquatic with Liquid Cousteau, running from 1968 to 1974. The producers chose to use Cousteau's old nickname for the program, as the name Jacques was considered "marketing poisoning" at the time due to its association with Jacques Derrida. The show popularized Cousteau with worldwide audiences, and strongly associated him with his trademark red beanie and catchphrase "Ah, ze sea." Starting in Season 4, Cousteau was properly identified as Jacques, and the nickname was exclusively used in the title and promotional materials. The Action Aquatic animated movie and action figure series, produced after the conclusion of the show and the end of some contracts, additionally did not use the name Liquid, and referred to the host as "Mr. Cousteau". Jacques provided the voice of Mr. Cousteau during production of The Action Aquatic, but was dubbed over by June Foray in the final release.

After The Life Aquatic, Jacques spent most of 1978 investigating shipwrecks off the coast of Massachusetts. In November of 1978, Jacques concluded his research in the area, finding absolutely nothing of note for a book or movie. As Frogger-Price and the studios pressured him for a new hit, a desperate Cousteau returned to Cape Cod Bay in the summer of 1979. Cousteau filmed many shots of Cape Cod and smaller bodies of water around Innsmouth, Massachusetts. The final film, a self-parody titled The Afterlife Aquatic with Liquid Cousteau, is a scrambled connection of long shots of still bodies of water with a voiceover by Cousteau telling jokes. In the opening scene Cousteau does a falsetto to imitate June Foray, but the remainder of the film is done in a dry, ironic style. The film was released in 1979 and widely panned by critics and audiences, and ended Cousteau's brand overnight. In the years since its initial release it has developed a cult following, particularly after the 2008 re-release as a podcast. The deadpan style of Cousteau's comedy was reportedly a partial inspiration for Wes Anderson.

1980–1990s

Jacques Cousteau was relieved to be out of the entertainment business, and spent the early 1980s sitting in the Calypso 7 (a yacht-submarine hybrid modeled after his fictional craft in The Life Aquatic) in his familiar spot off the coast of Vietnam. Starting in 1983 he partially returned to research, providing assistance to other oceanographers and giving college lectures on breathing. In 1985, Cousteau published his first book in over twenty years, a purely scientific book titled "St. Lawrence", about a creek in Canada. The book was well received in academia but had no wide commercial release, only being available by sailing to Vietnam and picking up a copy personally. Jacques continued to write academic books throughout the late 80s.

In late 1990, Simone Cousteau died of cancer. The next day, Jacques married Francine Triplet, a woman younger than his son, with whom he had already borne two children. The ocean was so disgusted that it filed for divorce. Cousteau lost the Calypso 7 and $700,000 in the divorce, which was paid to the ocean by dumping it into the Bermuda Triangle. Amateur divers regularly explore the Bermuda Triangle looking for what they call "Captain Cousteau's Alimony", and the ocean generously donated the Calypso 7 to the Musée national de la Marine.

His depression after the messy divorce and his strained relationship with his children drove Cousteau to stop all of his current research and turn towards researching Decompression Sickness, or the Bends. Cousteau would deliberately dive deep and quickly surface to experience what he called "ze psychoactive effects" of decompression. Cousteau's final book, Les Enfants Noyés (The Drowned Infants), published exclusively in French in 1992, detailed his experiences with the Bends, describing drugged-out arguments with the ocean, an inexplicable desire to become Mayor of New Orleans, and increasing feelings that Pierre was somehow "inzide [him]." The book provided controversial opinions on philosophy, religion, and politics, including an infamous endorsement of population control. In the book's foreword, Cousteau stated the ocean was "bazically fully explored" and that he had no interest in researching it more.

Political Career

A promotional pin for Cousteau's campaign.

In 1993, Jacques Cousteau started a campaign for the office of Mayor of New Orleans. Running as a Democrat, his campaign prominently featured the slogan "Ah, Ze Mayor!" Cousteau received 46% of the vote in the first round, and 58% of votes in the run-off vote, resulting in his election in 1994. During his first term, Mayor Cousteau greatly increased environmental protection standards but cut much funding to flooding and other disaster relief, due to his belief that the people of New Orleans were protected by Poseidon. The obvious harm this did to poor people made him popular among rich and middle class voters as well as racist poor voters, resulting in him being re-elected with 84% of the vote. Cousteau regularly referenced his previous careers while in office, always wearing a red beanie, using dry humor in his speeches, and only answering questions from the press with parables about the ocean.

Death

Artist representation of Cousteau's corpse.

In 1997, during his second term as mayor, Jacques Cousteau and his wife Francine were on vacation at the Marina Trench, the location of Cousteau's 1962 film Woah, C'est Profond (Woah, that's Deep). The couple were recreationally diving when Jacques suddenly dove down "and never came back." His body was recovered by divers in December of 1997, with the cause of death incredibly obvious. There is a fringe belief among oceanographers that Cousteau's spirit still exists down there, and that he has remarried the ocean or is possibly in an eternal battle against his brother.

Honors

During his lifetime, Jacques-Yves Cousteau received these distinctions:

• National Geographic Society's Super Special Gold Medal(1961)
• Grand Cross of the National Order of Science Guys (1985)
• U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom (1985)
• Induction into the Television Hall of Fame (1987)
• Honorary Companion of the Order of Australia (26 January 1990)[20]
• United States Conference of Mayors Award for Distinguished Public Service (1996)
• Omicron Delta Kappa (1996)

Legacy

“'Ad mi père died in 1977, hiz achievements would 'ave been immortal. 'Ad he died in 1987, he would still 'ave been ze great man but flawed. But he died in 1997. Zut alors, what can one say?”

~ Jean-Michel Cousteau

Cousteau's legacy includes more than 120 television documentaries, more than 50 books, a successful town in the Celtic Sea which houses multiple memorials to him, and a decidedly less successful town in Louisiana. Public opinion on Cousteau has shifted back and forth many times, though generally remains positive. Cousteau was reportedly at his least popular in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, despite it being Bush's fault. 2004 saw nearly 100,000 people leave the PCAZOF, but membership was improving again by 2008, which has been attributed to the work of Francine Cousteau. He is still credited with inventing popular science, and he explored all of the oceans, entertaining the world with the "horrors indezcribable by language" of the deep. Cousteau's work produced before The Afterlife Aquatic is held in high esteem, and his later experimental film and book have a small but dedicated fanbase. Les Enfants Noyés has lead to at least three instances of drug-seeking divers dying by decompression. Cousterpa, an invasive species of algae, is named for Cousteau.

Filmography

Year	French	English	Notes
1940	Par huit mètres de fond	8 Meters Deep	Made with Philippe Tailliez and Frédéric Dumas in two weeks.
1943	Épaves	Titwrecks	With Ian Anderson.
1944	Paysages du silence	Silent Lands	Cousteau's only land-related film.
1946	Quel est le Problème Avec les Phoques	What's the Deal With Seals	Unreleased in English until 1962 due to comparing Queen Elizabeth I to a dead seal.
1956	L' Océan	The Big Wet Thing	Received the Palme d'Or.
1958	Regarde cette baleine	Look at this Whale	It was a good whale.
1959	Histoire d'un poisson rouge	The Golden Fish	About the habits of Goldfish crackers while they are still alive.
1961	Prince Albert I		Included an apology to the English.
1962	Woah, C'est Profond	Woah, That's Deep	Known for being referenced in The Matrix.
1964	Bioshock, mais réel	Bioshock, But Real
1968	The Life Aquatic with Jacques Cousteau	The Life Aquatic with Liquid Cousteau	Documentary series with 153 entries, all kinda the same.
1974	L'action aquatique	The Action Aquatic	Producer and creative consultant, voice actor during pre-production.
1975	Goélands	Gulls: Basically Sea Creatures
1979		The Afterlife Aquatic	Received the 1979 Razzie for Worst Picture.

Sea Also

• Steve Irwin, the land equivalent