Final Years and Lasting Legacy

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This episode is dedicated to the late Doug Allen Our expert guest on Jacques Custeau who sadly died while trekking in Nepal in the weeks after our interview was recorded onene of the great wildlife cameramen of his generation Doug devoted his life to filming the natural world with skill bravery deeep humanity We were honored by his contribution to this episode and we dedicate it to his memory It is a summer morning In june, nineteen forty three Outside the railway station in the seaside village of Bandol on the French Riviera, the car pulls up It driver, a tall, lean naval officer, by the name of Jacques Cousteau, jumps out and strides towards the station In the railway's freight yard, a wooden crate waits for him, sent by express from Paris. Custeau signs for it and takes it to his car And Back at the villa, where he is staying with friends and family, there is an air of anticipation He unpacks the parcel with his two closest friends, Philippe Palier and Frederick Dumar, whose weather beaten faces and sinewy bodies portray a love of diving as deep as Csteu's own. The parcel contains a new kind of equipment, which he has co invented with an engineer in Paris somethingomething that might change the way humans explore the sea. Excitedly, he lifts out three moderately sized cylinders of compressed air, linked to a small regulator about the size of an alarm clock From the regulator, two hoses extend, joining at a mouthpiece through which it is hoped, a diver might be able to breathe underwater It's been months in development, but finally it's time to test it out Early the next day, the group of friends, with Cousteau's wife, Simone, head out to a nearby beach The men helped Gusteau strap on the harness, securing the three cylinder block to his back, and perform their final safety checks He rinses his mask, then slides it into place and positions the mouthpiece between his lips Staggering under the weight of the fifty pound apparatus, he wades into the sea Wearing her snorkel and mask, Simone slips into the water so she can keep an eye on him Frederic Dumer, the group's best diver, remains on the shore, keeping warm and rested so he can move quickly if Jacques needs help. Just six months ago, the last trial of this compressed air diving lung failed thanks to issues with the exhaust mechanism. But the group are hopeful that those glitches have now been fixed. In the water, Cousteau sinks gently and takes a tentative breath. A faint whistle greets his inhalation, and a ripple of bubbles escapes as he let it out. The Equipment is working. He is breathing underwater. It has been done before, but in previous trials, there was always a hitch when the diver moved. This time, however, it feels different Cautious at first, he kicks slowly downwards then up again The kit remains stable, even when he experiments with somersaults and barrel rolls As he swims, a canyon opens below him He marvels at the green weeds, black sea urchins and flower like white algae He sinks deeper than a mask and snorkel would ever allow him, taking his time in this underwater paradise Glancing up past a school of silvery fish, he sees the slender shape of simimone on the surface He waves, and the silhouette waves back With plenty left in the cylinders, he swims deeper towards a cave Once he's through the dark, narrow tunnel, it opens up, revealing a roof covered with lobsters, their heads and antennae pointing towards the entrance Cousteau plucks a pair from their rock face, then checks the tank. It's time to head back to the surface. Diving is hungry work, but now he has a hand selected luxury supper to look forward to. No small thing in wartime But this new invention, which becomes known as the Aquaun, won't just feed his family. It will change his life and reveal the treasures of the deep. the entire world co inventor of the Aqualum, a device that made modern underwater breathing practical. Captain Jacques Cousteau opened the ocean to the public like no one before explorer, filmmaker and environmentalist, he led groundbreaking underwater expeditions and pioneered techniques for filming beneath the waves And Through his documentaries and television series, he brought the mysteries of the sea into millions of homes, becoming known the world over for his trademark red knitted hat and his beloved ship, the Calypso Why did the ocean mean so much to him How did a French naval officer come to invent a device that would change humanity's relationship with the sea And what were the tragedies and controversies that marked the life of this charismatic adventurer I'm John Hopkins from the Noiser Podcast Network. This is a short history of Jacques Cousteau On june eleventh, nineteen ten, in a small French market town not far from Bordeau. Daniel Cousteau and Elizabeth Duurnton welcome their second son From younger brother to Pierre Antoine, Jacques is born into an affluent family Doug Allen was an underwater cameraman for series such as Blue Planet, Planet Earth, and Frozen Planet. He was also a lecturer on conservation and climate change This interview was recorded shortly before he passed away in april twenty twenty six His father was an international lawyer And his mother was the daughter of a wealthy local wine merchant and landowner So he wouldn't born into straightened circumstances, let's say After Jacques's birth in the village his parents come from His mother and father returned to their home in Paris Often ill as a child, Jacques shows his determination from an early age during a family holiday at a Normandy seaside resort when he is four years old He learns to swim The same summer, in nineteen fourteen, the First World War breaks out across Europe. Jacques's father, Daniel, loses the single client upon which his salary depends. and the family are forced to rely on Elizabeth's family money for the next four years when the war ends in nineteen eighteen Daniel is offered a new position on the condition that the family traveled to New York And it's after crossing the Atlantic that the shy young Jacques comes out of his shell When he moved to New York at the age of ten, he learned to speak English fluently and he improved his swimming and he also did some snorkeling. Apparently he spent a summer camp in Vermont where he was assigned to clear debris in the lake And he spent hours swimming around, getting things out of the water and moving with shore. And he called that a very formative experience. In America, Jacques's older brother, Pierre Antoine, who is also known as Pac, the acronym of his initials He becomes his closest companion Both strong willed and charismatic, the brothers share a spirit of adventure. will take them on different paths In nineteen twenty three, the family moves back to France. saves his allowance to buy a hand cranked movie camera and finds that using it gives him greater confidence and allows him to make friends more easily At fourteen, he completes his first full length project filming his cousin's wedding At school, however, his newfound self assurance sometimes tips into mischief After being expelled for breaking windows, he is sent to a boarding school two hundred and fifty miles from home It's strict but he thrives under its discipline. 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Rurning home with reels of footage that he cuts together and shows to family and friends But though he'll be known for his love of the sea For now, the restless Custeau has his eyes on the skies Before long he requests a transfer to the Naval Aviation Corps So he can train as a pilot By nineteen thirty six, at the age of twenty six, he has nearly finished his flight training when he borrows his father's sports car to attend a friend's wedding On the journey through the mountains, the headlights suddenly failed Luo crashes into a ditch. Both of his arms are badly broken and months of painful physiotherapy follow Though he recovers, one arm remains weak for the rest of his life When he resumes duty at the naval base in Toulon on France's Mediterranean coast, he works hard to rebuild his strength One of the recupperative measures to G arm as both was to take off swimming And so he started swimming and it was at that point that he met Another French lieutenant called Philip Talier who became a huge influence on his life Jenny was also a keen swimmer, but he was developing underwater goggles, a means of seeing when you were swimming, looking underwater. and he went c to borrow those one day for swimming And that was another transformational point. Gusto actually looked underwater and saw what the Mediterranean was like Beneath the water, Crsteau discovers a hidden world forests of kelp waving seaweed and fish in cols he has never seen before It is love at first sight Not long afterwards, another encounter will change the course of his life While staying with his family, he attends a party at the apartment of Henri Melchior. headad of air liquid a company that produces compressed air stored in steel cylinders There, he meets seventeen year old Simone Melchior Fluent in French and Japanese and raised in a naval family She shares Csteau's love of the sea The Milhere family to which Simone belonged They were French elites with money to march. And many of Simone's male relatives were admirals in the French Navy So Jacques again, by dint of sheure good fortune found himself circulating in some very influential company as far as the Navy was concerned But the pair of them definitely, they have a shared interest in the ocean In nineteen thirty seven, Cristau marries Simon And they settle in Souther France near the naval base at Toulon The following year, their son, Jean Bichel, is born At Touon, Cousteau works as an artillery instructor But whenever he can, he swims in the Mediterrane Philip Palier introduces him to a diver named Frederick Duma, nicknamed Deeee Dumas can hold his breath to dive as far as sixty five feet underwater Practicing what today is referred to as freediving The three of them dub themselves the sea musketeers. with the water loving Simone as an honorary member With his enthusiasm for cinematography still going strong, Custeau finds ways to protect his camera underwater. such as sealing it inside a glass jar Encouraged by his friends, he also begins diving, reaching depths of up to fifty feet. Having grown up on the books of Jules Vin, author of twenty thousand Leagues Under the Sea The young adventurers push themselves further each day aspiring to become what they call Men fish But their dives leave them craving more time to explore the depths By the nineteen thirties, divers are experimenting with compressed air systems that allow them to breathe underwater for limited periods But the available equipment is heavy and restrictive Couustau and his colleagues test these early designs, but their shortcomings quickly become clear In one experiment, Costeau loses consciousness after breathing an unsafe level of oxygen Another key challenge is that divers must manually regulate the flow of air from the tank, releasing it in careful bursts What is needed, Cistau believes, is a mobile device capable of adjusting the airflow automatically The possibility of moving freely beneath the surface becomes a burning ambition But in seeptember nineteen thirty nine, the wider world has more urgent plans Germany invades Poland and France alongside Britain war. While his friends are reassigned to duties in other parts of the country Coustex remains stationed at Touon In may nineteen forty, France is invaded by the Nazis with whom the French signed an armistice the following month with German troops occupying Paris and the North The government retreats south For Cristau and Simone, these anxious times are lightened by the happy arrival of their second son, Philippe named after his father's good friend, Philippe Talier A couple of years later, Couustau is posted to a base in Marseilles That spring, he finds a thirty five millimeter movie camera in a junk shop With help from his friends, he begins adapting it for use in the sea invented or made underwater housings for different cameras. And of course, a pair of them were quite well placed because they were both officers in the French Navy and they had access to the workshops in the dockyards that they were based in I often wonder how many of his early housings were done as favours by the people in the workshops who maybe weren't supposed to be working on these one offs for Crsto, but they just had some spare d and so they would machineine down some components That summer. Reunited with his family and the sea musketeers Gusteau works on a film capturing his friends spearfishing which he titles eighteen meters downown. in November Csteau and his family are woken in the night by the roar of airopplanes overhead On the radio, they learn that Adol Hitler has ordered the invasion of Southern France German and Italian forces are now moving in In response, the French Navy scuttles its own fleet on the southern coast to prevent the ships from falling into enemy hands. Italian troops, allied with the Germans garris in the town and Simone prepared to fleet to Paris with the children hoping it will be safer there to law Cousteu learned that the ship to which he was posted has been destroyed Now a sailor without a vessel He is soon approached by a contact from the French resistance A navy man with knowledge of photography is a valuable asset to the underground network Ustanding the deadly consequences of being caught He rises to the challenge and he is soon undertaking his first missions It is a cold winter's day in nineteen forty two Jacques Custeau studies himself in a mirror in the bathroom of a resistance run restaurant The insignia of an Italian naval officer glints faintly in his reflection. He adjusts the cap a fraction. He is as ready as he'll ever be Nodding at his contact in the restaurant, he picks up his dispatch case and steps out into the street, walking towards the Italian naval headquarters in the dockyard Built in wind bleached stone, its narrow windows are dark except for flickers of movements inside. From a flagpole hangs the Italian naval flag, and guards stand at the entrance, rifles slung over their shoulders Costeau moves towards them, and the stolen uniform does its work. They glance at the insignia and look away. He crosses the threshold of the building Inside the sounds of the city are more muffled A narrow corridor stretches ahead, he recalls his instructions and tries a door. First time lucky Inside the empty room, maps bloom across the walls with the Mediterranean etched in intricate detail Castau helps himself to a folder of maps and takes them to a desk beneath a green shaded lamp. From his dispatch case, he produces his precious LIka camera He pauses, listening to a murmur of voices in the corridor beyond the door, but the sound soon fades, and he gets to work photographing the documents, capturing enemy intelligence, gun emplacements, and stockpiles of ammunition. Suddenly hears footsteps approaching, and a shadow crosses the frosted glass There is a loud exchange in Italian just outside the door, and Cisteu has just enough time to slide the camera back into his case before the handle is rattled But it stills as swiftly as it started, And whoever it is moves on Csteau swallows hard His luck might not hold It is time to go Fastening his dispatch case with the LIker safe inside, he returns the folder to its place, then exits the room, shuts the door, and leaves the building Even an intrepid explorer like him recognizes risk when he sees it And he's in no doubt about the consequences of mistakes on a mission like this He has just survived, arguably, the most dangerous ten minutes of his life After the war, Cousteau is awarded the Legion Donneur, France's highest Order of merit, in recognition of his courageous service to the resesistance Before the conflict is over, Simone has a brain wave She asks her father if he knows anyone at Eir Liquid who might be able to help her husband in his mission to breathe underwater So it is that Cousteau meets a quiet engineer by the name of Emile Gaget He shows Csteau a small device called a demand reggulator, which is designed to release compressed gas only when required Intrigued, Custau immediately sees how such a mechanism might be adapted for diving, and the pair begin adapting the regulator for underwater use But their first attempt in January, nineteen forty three works only when Cstau is horizontal As soon as he dives with his head down and his feet up, he can barely draw a breath Ganya makes some adjustments to the design, and six months later, in june, nineteen forty three Costeu enters the Mediterranean to test the modified apparatus It is a resounding success He is able to spend around half an hour breathing freely as he explores underwater his dream beccoming a manfish has come true And he was developing all these things right under the eyes of the Nazis. It was remarkable how he managed to do it and he has a wonderful description of when he had the working Alon in his hands. He and Tillier were able to dive under the water and while, the rest of France was struggling for food, they would come back with armfululls of lobsters that they had caught underneath the Mediterranean using their new equipment and they themselves were able to pass these lobsters around their friends and live at a much better standard in a way than a lot of France was doing at the time Costeau sends word back to Ganners in Paris to apply for a patent and asks for two similar prototypes for Telier and Duma The pair called their invention the Aquila It is a device that will open up the underwater world to ordinary people effectively democratized diving. It meant that diving went out to anyone who could swim virtually could learn to dive. And so the invention of the Aqual and the invention of sccuba Scuba stands for self contained underwater breathing apparatus. The imagion of Scuba was definitely one of Custco's greatest achievements Soon, Cousteau and his friends begin to clock up hundreds of dives between them Simone becomes the world's first female scuba diver. and even the children have the opportunity to try out their father's new equipment in shallow waters The sea musketeers begin exploring local shipwrecks and bring treasures back to the surface er silverware, even bottles of pre war perfume But there are hazards in this new world too with injuries sustained from razor edged clams and scorpion fish Thrilled with their new discovers, they experiment with how deep they can go. The doomer eventually clocks in at two hundred and ten feet This record breaking depth introduces them to the so called raapure of the deep A strange euphoria brought on by inhaling nitrogen under pressure now known as nitrogen narcosis Their adventures are recorded in a film titled Epave, or shipwrecks. And when it is shown to a room full of admirals in Toulon, they immediately recognize the military potential of the Aquilan. and place an order for ten of them atever your thing. It could be anything. Canva helps you make that thing a thing. Canva is a simple online tool thing. It's a way to design with our magic AI tool things. You can social media your thing Genate images or videos of your thing, make decks or presentations to show your thing. Whatever needs to be done for your thing, Canva can make it an even better and bigger thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing Study and play. Come together on a Windows eleven PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the unreal college deal, everything you need to study and play with select Windows eleven PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft three hundred sixty five premium and a year of Xbox GamePass ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at windows dot com slash student offer Law supplies last ends june thirtieth turnerms at aka d. ms slash college PC. In may nineteen forty five, the war in Europe finally comes to an end But the celebrations don't last long for Custeu Because shortly afterwards, he receives news that his brother, Pack has been arrested As a Nazi collaborator Pierre was born four years earlier in Japes But a big divergence came during the war because Pak effectively became a German collaborator. and he supported the Nazis, wrote a lot of propagandist stuff for them. And after the war pact was actually condemned today as a collaborator But I think Kusto has some influence and managed to get that death sentence commuted into life imprisonment Pack in the end stayed ten, twelve years in prison and then was released and I suspect that they had very little to do with each other after that point So you couldn't have had a greater contrast between the two wars that the two brothers fought brothers largely remain estranged until Pak's death decade or so later in nineteen fifty eight Meanwhile, not long after the war, the French Navy creates what it calls the underwater Rsearch Group to teach sailors to dive Talier as the most senior officer is the commander Custeau is his deputy. Largely left to their own devices, the group is tasked with clearing French harbourors of mines and sunken wrecks Yet there is still time for filmmaking and for satisfying their grown curiosity about the underwater world The men egg each other on attempting to break new records, despite the known risks In terms of the medical effects of being deep, that had actually been discovered back in Victorian times, particularly when they were building tunnels under rivers You often just have to pressurise the tunnel where you are building it to stop water seeping in from the outside And they knew that if Wman worked for a day, they was under pressure. And they just brought them up. The workers would often complain of stiffness in their joints and things like that. And that effectively is what you call getting the bines, which is where you work under pressure, nitrogen dissolves into your blood, into your joints. and when you come up, you have to come up slowly That says gas escaped from you. So to some extent, Gusu was working with long established medical principles But when you go into keeping people underwater forg I mean, how deep can you dive? And they were definitely pushing on in nineteen forty seven, attempting a new depth record team loses one of their own A diver called Maurice Fag reaches three hundred and eighty five feet but loses consciousness underwater It is the Aquilung's first fatality Yet, despite the tragedy, demand for Cousteu's invention continues to grow Before long, the aqualung is being sold not only across Europe, but also in the United States and Canada. publicity building Custeau hires his father as a business agent. When Custau Sr helps set up a screening of his son's short films, a magazine editor makes inquiries about the French manan who can breathe underwater The resulting seven page feature in Life magazine Faturing the diver's dramatic photos of sharks, reaches more than ten million readers. A week later, Csteau accepts an offer from Universal Studios of eleven thousand dollars for his first four documentaries But for that, he needs a vessel of his own And soon the perfect solution is found. The wooden hulled Calypsa began its life during the Second World War as a British mines sweeeper He didn't buy himself, it was a billionaire from the Guinness family who actually leased it to him for one euro for a year. And then at the end of it he acquired it completely for himself And he fitted it out as the perfect expedition diving vessel He modified bits of the structure, but he made it a place where he could roam the world with his team of divers. He went from Antarctica to Tasmania to the Mississippi River Custeas remortgage their house to help renovate the calypso, and Simone sells her jewelry to raise more funds. Custeau refits the vessel for exploration. addding a bulbous bow with eight viewing windows for filming underwater He takes three years leave from the Navy and assembles a team of divers, including Dumas. On the evening before they depart, the crew gather around the small galley table for dinner Their captain Custeau, makes a toast to their new adventure cllose him with his motto, Ilfaux Eivevoir. We must go and see for ourselves On november twenty fourth, nineteen fifty one, the Calypso set out on its first expedition to the Red Sea, a narrow stretch of water between Northeastern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula Gusteau cheerfully describes it as a nice hot bathtub full of shocks In its warm waters, the crew encounter dazzling coral reefs and identify previously unknown species The following year, he discovers a two thousand year old Greek shipwreck off the coast of Marseilles from which he recovers ancient ceramics He also now establishes the French Office of Undersea Technology in Toulon. a center dedicated to inventing and improving diving equipment and underwater technology With the help of Dumas, he also begins writing about his adventures. The resulting book, The Silent World becomes a New York Times bestseller. The sele Mel really was the book that launched Jacques into the public sea into public recognition When that was published in nineteen fifty three, it was an international bestseller. It sold millions of copies and became a phenomenon and it really lifted Custo into the realms The success of the silent world allows the Calypso's voyages to become more ambitious. The crew ventures into the Persian Gulf, where some of the time is spent surveying the seabed for oil companies. It is demanding work, but pays for what will become the first full length underwater film in color The film showcases the treasures of the ocean Porpoises leaping through the waves and Jojo a large group of fish who love to be fed scraps. But it also captures the camaraderie of the men as they play cards and share bottles of wine Nicknamed The Shepherdess, Simone is adored by the crew. Costeau's sons join their parents on their holidays from boarding school In nineteen fifty six, the resulting film also titled The Silent World wins the palm door. highighest prize the Cann Film Festival as well as the Oscar for Best documentary. But the film, which includes footage of the crew blowing up coral reefs and harpooning fish is not without its critics Culd was a visionary, but he also had his moments of controversy The silland world has a scenaet, which is really quite disturbing now where the Calypso is plowing through the ocean And it comes across a board of Spermwills Unfortunately in totally by accident, they hit one of the calf Sperm wheels. Another sperm wheel was injured And shortly after some sharks came in, they were attracted by the blood coming from the sperurnnd wheale. And they ended up killing the sperurn whale baby. And at that point the Custo team decided that the sharks were the killers and there are shorts of the pulling these sharks on board Cubso and just basically copying them today contravices, the film propels Ceaotu to worldwide fame with an innate sense of charm and style is a nural in front of the camera. The French people bring elegance and a land to what they do. They do things in a different way He was a wonderful showman, he was a wonderful visionary, but he had a real knack of knowing what the public wanted In the late nineteen fifties, Cristaotu takes on the directorship of Monaco's Oceanographic Museum and helps develop a revolutionary underwater vehicle nicknamed The Diving Saucer. for its resemblance to the classic UFO shape And soon, his busy mind turns to greater challenges. He begins to imagine a world where humans can live underwater and sets out to make it a reality There were two big frontiers through the seies That was going to space with NASA and it was going underwater And while the Moon mission was the big aim for NASA Austal was the visionary who took things into the underwater realm. In nineteen sixty two, he spoke about this being the dawn of what he called homo aquaticus And he actually envisioned people living under the sea Partly as humans, but there was also experiments into, for example, they flooded the lungs of mice. with super oxygenated water and found that these mice could live underwater no problem So K so I think of this idea let's look at a different form of humans, a different way of human beings actually living underwater The step in this ambitious journey is a project called Cornhelf One It is a watertight capsule, the size of a large bedroom which sits at around thirty three feet below the surface of the coast of Marseille. The Aquaauts, as they are known, are under daily medical supervision and with air pumped in, they enter and exit through a hole in the floor. known as the Moon pool The air pressure inside the chamber prevents the water from flooding in And it was just a very simple cylinder which was put into the water in the Mediterranean, down to a depth of ten meters and two people lived in it for a week. So he decided to take that to the next sagege And he designed Conshf too which was a much bigger thing. That was really like a village underneath a seat in the Red Sea of the coast of Sudan Cornshelf two features two separate residences At one hundred feet, the deep cabin is home to just two acronauts for a week The bigger habitat close to the surface at thirty three feet is called Starfish House Taking its name from its shape, it is a two story structure with everything from air conditioning to sunlamps to a garage for the diving saucer There, five aquinauts live and work for a month air is pumped from the Italian cargo ship Riselda of the smaller Calypso ferries supplies from the shore visitors from the Risealo the underwater village. It is july nineteen sixty three A swelteringly hot day. Off the coast of Sudan, Simone Costau stands on the deck of Riseallddo preparing to dive She shifts her weight under the cylinder on her back. After getting a final once over from a crew member, with her fins in one hand, she begins to descend the ladder on the side of the ship When the water reaches her chest, she rinses out her mask, pulls it on, and fits her mouthpiece, taking a testing breath And then, slipping on her fins, she surrenders to the cool water Immediately the noises of the world above disappear, replaced by just the steady rhythm of her own breathing through the aquilung Kicking away, she begins her descent. The Red Sea opens in astonishing clarity The reef below rises to meet her, a garden in motion Coral growing in multiple shapes and forms Every inch is vivid with life Antheas flicker past in clouds of orange, and a pair of brilliant butterfly fish glide by Below her, the continental shelf dips away into deeper blue. She exhales and lets herself sink a little more, the pressure tightening briefly around her ears before releasing as she equalizes She swims on, glancing at her compass. Not far now At last, she glimpses the vivid yellow of Starfish House airtight capsule standing on stilt like legs on the seabed, bubbles streaming from its air supply Letting herself into the cage like structure at the basement, Simone climbs a ladder through the circular moon pool, where water gives way to air There, as she hauls herself onto the platform, her movements grow heavier with a return of gravity. A half dressed diver greets her and steps into help, unbuckling her tank and easing the weight from her shoulders After rolling down her wetsuit, she heads next door to the living area There she finds the men sitting around a small table with cigarettes in their hands, wearing only shorts to keep cool. after exchanging greetings and pausing to tickle their green parrot under the beat, she pinches a smoke from one of them and slips through the kitchen Through a small window, movement catches her eye. A trigger fish hovers just outside Watching them Cook tells her he's trained it to come to the moon pool for food When they wander over, it's already there waiting for them they drop a few scraps into the water and watch it snap them up. Simone laughs. Calling through to the men, she asks them to send a message up to the Riseeldo that she'll stay the night in one of the visitor berths After all Why would she choose the surface over this magical underwater paradise With footage taken from his extraordinary habitats, Gusteau makes a documentary called World Without Sun It airs just before Christmas in nineteen sixty four. and wins him his second Oscar By now, the oil companies are eager to learn how much deeper humans can live So a year later, Cnshelf three is launched A spherical structure over three hundred feet deep. It is anchored just off the coast of France. Though the six men have comfortable lodgings, they are breathing a mixture ninety eight percent helium and two percent oxygen which affects their voices to such a degree Conversation is rendered almost impossible Their senses of taste and smell are also dulled. Though the experiment provides valuable insights into deep sea living It is costly and complex In april nineteen sixty six, CBS airs a one hour TV special on Cornhelf three which is narrated by the film star Orson Wells But a producer on the documentary decides there's more mileage in Custeau's adventures Not long after, ABC television acquires the first series of the underndersea worldor of Jacques Cousteau for four point two million dollars The first episode, shharks premiereers in nineteen sixty eight and features footage of one of Cousteau's divers riding a sixty foot whale shark. though the series is a hit Captain Csteau and his crew of Gung ho adventurers sometometimes take things a little too far He did one or two things which must have been debatable even at the time. I remember one of the episodes of the underndersea World of Jacques Crusto where he took two young first seal pups from I think a Rookerie in South Africa and took them on board the Calypso with this idea of seeing how they would adapt to being with humans, which is a mad idea. it never worked. They just kept biting people and they had to be kept mages all the time. And I think eventually they were let loose in another part of the world where to be honest, their chances of survival were tiny Now that's the sort of thing that even at the time, there most have been people thought this is a mad idea shark, you know, it'll make A story lighting through one of your programms, but let's not go there On the other hand, it was transmitted at the time and it's more an indication of the sort of ethics of filmmaking at the time which have moved on since then So it's that whole question of judging someone by the historical standards of the day, let's say popular television show runs for eight years. Ending in nineteen seventy six. B which time the tall, thin Frenchman in his trademark knitted red hat together with his plucky crew. is known all over the world. Heat up your fourth of July at the Home Depot with our wide variety of grills under three hundred dollars and make every gathering one to remember. 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That's why you rack In the late sixties and early seventies Cousteau and his divers begin to notice a deterioration in the world's oceans I think it's easy to forget just how pristine the Mediterranean was when Kuso was born and between the wars, before it all began to get industrialized around the edge and things. So Gusaso was very aware of the riches in the Mediterranean and then he was one of the first people to go and explore places like the Red Sea and further abroad So he saw the oceans at a lovely period in history And if you can draw a parallel between Cusso and David Atinberurggh, for example Anyone who has seen the world the way that they have since the mid fifties to today, you cannot help but become aware of the human influence on the oceans In nineteen seventy three, Custau founds a nonprofit organization C stow society. protect the oceans and restore marine habitats With offices in New York and Los Angeles and the French branch LeQipe Cousteau in Paris It offers membership to the general public Jacques serves as chairman with his son, Philiip as vice president Theap from early on was definitely going to be Custeau's heir and successor And the pair of them were very, very close, although they did have some heated arguments Philip became more involved with the making of the films, the undersea world of Jacque Cusso became more of a character in them It is in part, Philippe's influence that helps Gustau develop a stronger focus on the environment ogether he and his father speak to governments and the general public about the urgent need to reduce pollution. and protect the planet Csteau's life is now one of a busy international star Though he is not always strong at managing his finances, his charismatic personality enables him to continue attracting funding for his work I think he had a wicked sense of fun, a wicked sense of humor and he wasn't knowingly cruel to anyone. He just liked to be the center of things. He knew that toically he had to be the center of things because that was what people expected Sometimes he might just be on set or be on vacation for one or two days. then he's off again to some conference talking about things. And so those who knew him well on the ship, they maybe had a wise smile to themselves. Well here comes the star helicoptering in for a couple of days That's what happens on many, many films today In nineteen seventy seven, he received an environmental prize from the United Nations in recognition of his contributions to conservation twoo years later traragedy strikes. While his wife is pregnant with their second child, Philippe crashes, landing his seaplane on the Teagas River in Portugal though the others on board survive Philiipe's body is swept away by the water and is not found for three days utterly heartbroken Custau can't bring himself to identify his son's body. And he sends Philippe's older brother, Jean Michel to do it. Philippe is buried at sea twenty five miles of the Portuguese coast. Afterwards, Custeau speaks to reporters about the importance of finding someone to continue his work But he never talks about his beloved son in public again Finding a way through his grief, he returns to exploration Filming in the Amazon and the Mississippi and retracing the roots of great explorers such as Christopher Columbus. Simone retreats to her beloved Calypso spepending long periods alone as the couple live increasingly separate lives But Jacques begins a lengthy affair with a woman named Francine Trepleay. a young flight attendant he met during his travels The relationship deepens And he has a secret second family with her. In nineteen ninety, shortly after being diagnosed with an aggressive cancer, Simone passes away Her ashes are scattered over the sea of Monica. Crsteau does not leave it long before marrying Francine The move which creates an irreparable rift with his surviving son desespite the fractures in his personal life Csteau's passion for protecting the oceans does not fade, even in his eighties When companies begin discussing plans to mine Antarctica for oil and minerals, Couusteu begins a worldwide campaign to stop them. He meets with political leaders and collects more than a million signatures on an international petition To raise awareness, he makes a film Liput in Antarctica Traveling to the icy continent with six children from different countries His efforts contribute to the establishment of a lasting ban on mining on the continent. and its designation as a place of scientific research Continuing with his mission, he advocates for every child's right to inherit an uncontaminated planet And eventually, the wording of his Bill of Rights for future generations is approved by the UNESCO General Conference It is Coueau's final triumph as if foreshadowing his decline Ccalypso sinks in nineteen ninety six in Singapore in a collision with a barge One of his team manages to salvage the wrecked boat to bring her home Before she reaches France, Cousteau suffers a heart attack and dies on june twenty fifth, nineteen ninety seven at the age of eighty seven in Paris. By the end of his life, he has been awarded every honor his home country can bestow At his funeral at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, President Jacques Chirac leads a thousand mourners calling Cistau an enchanter who represented the defense of nature, modern adventure, and the dreamy part at the heart of all of us Jacques Cousteau reshaped humanity's relationship with the sea Through his pioneering films, inventions, and expeditions, he brought the hidden world of the oceans into public view As a leading voice for marine conservation, he helped to protect the fragile environment he'd spent his life exploring Though his early work was marked by some controversial decisions and his later years by his complicated personal life. Cousteau's enduring achievement was to make the oceans snot a place of discovery Ps worth defending He embodies adventure under the sea and he is still the name that comes to mind when so many people talk about where they got their inspiration from the sea, Jacques Custa will come up And it's because his films are still out there on the internet, his books are still out there and available and because his principles are stronger than ever about the need to look after the oceans ext time on Short History, we'll bring you a short History of punk plays a pretty long game, I think, in terms of the impact that if we're talking in the British context, sexpistols have just in terms of inspiring a whole generation of musicians to come up with really constantly evolving and interesting and exciting forms of music and musical presentation open up a space for lots of people who previously probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to do creative things and to do creative things in ways that fundamentally changed the culture of Britain and the world That's next time You can listen to the next two episodes of Short History O right now withithout waiting and without adverts by subscribing to Noiser Plus Just hit the link in the episode description or head to www. noiser. com forward slash subscriptions to unlock more episodes today.