Jacques Cousteau

Jacques-Yves Cousteau (virginmedia.com)

Avid reader, legendary undersea explorer, film producer, painter, poet writer, father, and husband. This is the life of Jacques Cousteau. Jacques-Yves Cousteau (ZHAHK-eev koos-Toe), was born on June 11, 1910, in St. Andre-deCubzac, near the port city of Bordeaux in southwestern France.

His parents, Daniel P. and Elizabeth (Duranthon) Cousteau, were residents of Paris but before having their second son they returned to their native home of southwestern France. As a child he lived in a Paris apartment, but the family spent most of the time traveling with a wealthy American businessman James Hazen Hyde. He was a legal advisor, companion, and a business analyst. Cousteau remembered being lulled to sleep by the motion of trains as they sped across Europe. Cousteau was sent to Camp Harvey in Vermont the first year they moved to the U.S. Jacques Cousteau discovered diving after his instructor Mr. Boetz punished Cousteau by making him pick up the branches and debris in the murky lake water.

(ouramazingplanet.com)

Cousteau was also a film producer; he produced the Silent World in 1956, the Golden Fish in 1959, and World Without Sun. In 1946, Cousteau organized and led the French navy’s Undersea Research Group in clearing German mines from Mediterranean ports. The highest awards he received was the Legion d’honneur and the Croix de’Guerre, with palm (after World War 2). He has also won 2 Geographic Society gold medals. He has also won an international environmental prize.

Jacques attended Holy Name School in Manhattan. Later on he went on to St. Stanislaus Academy and from there he went to the Naval Academy at Brest. Jacques was known to write poetry, which he discarded, to paint landscapes and to play the piano, for which he had classical training as a child. He sometimes sat alone to listen to music from his extensive record collection. The senior Cousteaus spent their decades aboard the Calypso.

Jacques married Simone Melchior. They had two boys named Jean-Michel born in 1938 and the other Philippe born in 1939. Cousteau passed away on June 25, 1997, two weeks after his birthday. He died at the age of 87 years old.