JACQUES-YVES COUSTEAU. Born in Saint-Andre-de-Cubzac, Gironde department, France, 11 June 1910. Educated at Stanislas Academy in Paris, Bachelier, 1930; Ecole Navale in Brest, France, France's naval academy, 1933. Married Simone Melchior, 1937 (died, 1990), children: Diane, Elizabeth, Pierre-Yves Daniel, Phillipe (died, 1979). Served in the French Navy, entering as a second lieutenant, 1933; assigned to the naval base at Toulon; served as a gunnery officer, 1939-40; active in the French underground resistance; founded and became head of the French navy's Undersea Research Group, 1946; resigned from French Navy, 1956. Co-invented the first Aqua-Lung, 1942-43; set a world's free-diving record, 1947; founded and became president of the Campagnes Oceanographiques Francaises, 1950, and the Centre d'Etudes Marines Acancees, 1952; as scientific leader, conducted field expeditions aboard his oceanographic research vessel named Calypso, 1951-1996, Calypso II since 1996; director of the Oceanographic Institute and Museum in Monaco, 1957-88; promoted the Conshelf Saturation Dive Program, 1962; general secretary of the International Commission for the Scientific Exploration of the Mediterranean (I.C.S.E.M.), 1966; author of numerous books since 1953; author and producer of numerous documentary films and television series; environmental advocate; inventor of turbosail system, 1985. Member: National Academy of Sciences; Academie Francaise. Recipient: Academy Awards, 1957, 1959; Cannes Film Festival, Gold Palm Award, 1959; Potts Medal of the Franklin Institute, 1970; Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1985; inducted into the Television Hall of Fame, 1987; National Geographic Society's Centennial Award, 1988; several Emmys, the Legion of Honor.

TELEVISION SERIES

1966-68 The World of Jaques-Yves Cousteau
1968-76 The Undersea World of Jaques-Yves Cousteau 1977 Oasis in Space
1977-81 The Cousteau Odyssey Series
1982-84 The Cousteau/Amazon Series
1985-91 Cousteau's Rediscovery of the World I
1992-94 Rediscovery of the World II

TELEVISION SPECIALS (selection)

The Tragedy of the Red Salmon
The Desert Whales Lagoon of Lost Ships Dragons of Galapagos Secrets of the Sunken Caves
The Unsinkable Sea Otter
A Sound of Sea Dolphins
South to Fire and Ice
The Flight of Penguins
Beneath the Frozen World
Blizzard of Hope Bay
Life at the End of the World
Jacques Yves Cousteau's Calypso's Legend Lilliput Conquers America
Outrage at Valdez

FILM (selection)

The Silent World, 1956; The Golden Fish, 1959; The World Without Sun, 1965

PUBLICATIONS (selection)

The Silent World (with Frederic Dumas). New York: Harper, 1952.

The Living Sea. (with James Dugan). New York: Harper and Row, 1963.

World Without Sun (James Dugan, editor). New York: Harper and Row, 1965.

The Shark: Splendid Savage of the Sea (with Phillipe Cousteau). Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1970.

Jacques Cousteau's Amazon Journey (with Mose Richards). New York: H.N. Abrams, 1984.

Jacques Cousteau is television's most celebrated maker and presenter of documentaries about the underwater world. Setting the standard for such programmes for decades to come, he had a profound influence upon succeeding generations of television documentary-makers around the world.

Cousteau was the virtual creator of the underwater documentary, having helped to develop the world's first aqualung diving apparatus in 1943, while a lieutenant in the French Navy, and having pioneered the process of underwater television. The aqualung afforded divers a freedom underwater that they had never hitherto enjoyed and the arrival of equipment to film underwater scenes opened the door to the documentary makers for the first time (he also had a hand in the development of the bathyscaphe, which allowed divers to descend to great depths).

Founder of the French Navy's Undersea Research Group in 1946, Cousteau became commander of the research ship Calypso (a converted minesweeper) in 1950 and most of his epoch-making films were subsequently made with this vessel as his base of operations (he made a total of some 30 voyages in all). Cousteau's early films were made for the cinema and he earned Oscars for The Silent World, The Golden Fish and World Without Sun, as well as other top awards, such as the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Later documentaries were made for television, and such series as Under the Sea, The World About Us and The Cousteau Odyssey consistently attracted large audiences when shown in the United Kingdom. The World of Jacques Cousteau, first broadcast in 1966, proved internationally successful, running for some eight years (retitled The Undersea World of Jacques-Yves Cousteau) and drawing fascinated audiences of millions all around the globe. When this series ended in 1976 he concentrated on one-off specials on selected subjects (titles including Oasis in Space, The Cousteau Amazon and Cousteau Mississippi).

The appeal of Cousteau's films was not limited to the subject matter, for Cousteau's narrative, delivered in his distinctive nasal unremittingly French accent, was part of the character of his work. His narration was occasionally humorous and tended to personalize the species under discussion, with fish being described as "cheeky" or "courageous". The inclusion of members of his family, his wife Simone and his two sons (one of whom later died) in his films also added a humanizing touch. Such an approach did much to rouse awareness of the richness of life beneath the waves and underlined the responsibility mankind had towards other species.

The winner of numerous accolades and awards over the years, Cousteau is also respected as a outspoken commentator on a range of environmental issues, particularly noted for his uncompromising stand on such matters as nuclear waste and oil pollution. He has also written numerous books based on his research and was until 1988 director of the Oceanic Museum of Monaco (a similar institution opened in Paris in 1989 failed to prosper and closed its doors two years later).

-David Pickering