Thirty years ago Jacques-Yves Cousteau (pictured) was reckoned to be one of the ten most recognised men in the world. This biography, uncritical but revealing, shows how that happened. Nominally a captain in the French navy, Cousteau spent most of his working life pioneering a new form of celebrity, that of the TV explorer. With his ship, the converted minesweeper Calypso, and a crew of divers with attractive French accents and film-star looks, he patrolled the more photogenic corners of the oceans and documented these exploits in books and television programmes that turned him into a global godfather of undersea adventure.

The secret of this success, explains Brad Matsen, the author of many books and articles about the sea, was nothing to do with the science of oceanography or indeed the science of anything. It was to do with television. In “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau”, the documentary series that ran from 1968 and was shown all over the world, and its successor, “The Jacques Cousteau Odyssey”, he hit on the thing of which every TV producer dreams: a near-perfect small-screen formula.

First there was the boat. With its attractive lines glowing a telegenic white against the dark ocean, Calypso was an enclosed world, a drama in itself. Then there was the technology. Cousteau was a genuine innovator, having had a hand in developing an underwater breathing apparatus as well as refining techniques for underwater filming and dreaming up nifty little one- or two-person submarines. Above all, he insisted that the technology looked good, especially on film. He was not competing with universities or research institutes but with “Thunderbirds” and James Bond.

... contd.