However, an automobile accident, which broke both his arms, cut short his career in naval aviation. In 1930, he entered the École navale and graduated as a gunnery officer. Cousteau completed his preparatory studies at the Collège Stanislas in Paris. The old phrase has a literal meaning: We are all in the same boat.'Ĭousteau was born on 11 June 1910, in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, Gironde, France, to Daniel and Élisabeth Cousteau. 'The sea, the great unifier, is man's only hope. A second documentary series, The Cousteau Odyssey, ran from 1977 to 1982 on public television stations. It was also awarded the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1957.įrom 1966 to 1976, he hosted The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, a documentary television series, presented on American commercial television stations. The film won the 1956 Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and remained the only documentary to do so until 2004, when Fahrenheit 9/11 received the award. Co-directed by Cousteau and Louis Malle, it was one of the first films to use underwater cinematography to document the ocean depths in color. The book was adapted into an underwater documentary called The Silent World. In his first book, The Silent World: A Story of Undersea Discovery and Adventure, Cousteau surmised the existence of the echolocation abilities of porpoises. The apparatus assisted him in producing some of the first underwater documentaries.Ĭousteau wrote many books describing his undersea explorations. He co-invented the first successful Aqua-Lung, open-circuit SCUBA ( self-contained underwater breathing apparatus). Jacques-Yves Cousteau, AC ( / k uː ˈ s t oʊ/, also UK: / ˈ k uː s t oʊ/, French: 11 June 1910 – 25 June 1997) was a French naval officer, oceanographer, filmmaker and author.

Daniel guso