Cousteau is the son of
Jacques-Yves Cousteau and
Simone Cousteau, who were business partners. Cousteau first dived with an
aqua-lung in 1945 when he was seven years old. Although he went to school to study architecture, he joined his father's Cousteau Society, serving for twenty years as executive vice president before striking out on his own in 1993 to produce environmental films. Cousteau and his father disagreed on the management and policies of the Society. After Cousteau opened a resort on a
Fiji island utilizing the family name, Jacques-Yves Cousteau filed a lawsuit against him in 1996. Cousteau is also Chairman of
Green Cross France. Cousteau advocates for a world free of
nuclear weapons, and is a member of the Advisory Council of the
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Cousteau is working on a documentary highlighting the epic and disastrous
2010 Gulf Oil Spill in which 11 workers were killed during an explosion of deepwater rig off the coast of Louisiana, United States. In 2012, he published the book
My Father, The Captain: My Life with Jacques Cousteau. Cousteau is the President of Green Cross France & Territoires, a NGO proposing keys for actions towards a better environment for an unburdened future.
Film production and appearances He has produced over 70 films. He appears in the 2003
IMAX documentary film
Coral Reef Adventure. He appeared on a documentary-type special feature,
Case of the Sponge "Bob", on the DVD version of
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004) in which he and
Stephen Hillenburg talk about all of the real-life counterparts to the sea creatures seen in the cartoon series and movie. He did a similar feature for the DVD of the
Disney/
Pixar movie
Finding Nemo:
Exploring the Reef with Jean-Michel Cousteau. In Disney's DVD release of
Finding Nemo, Cousteau makes an appearance interacting with the characters from the film, Marlin, Nemo and
Dory, and touting the need for better pollution control, showing videos of polluted
coral reefs. Cousteau made a new documentary series
Ocean Adventures released in 2006. Ocean Futures Society,
KQED and
PBS are continuing production on the
Ocean Adventures series for 2007 and 2008. In October 2006, Cousteau, and an expedition team that includes his son Fabien and daughter Céline, began filming along the
Amazon River. Twenty years ago scientists predicted devastation and irreversible environmental damage here, and 25 years ago Cousteau and his father traveled with their teams the entire length of the Amazon to document, learn, and see for themselves. In 2006, Cousteau's documentary
Voyage to Kure inspired then
U.S. President George W. Bush to protect the
Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, making it—with its of ocean waters, islands, and
atolls—one of the largest
Marine Protected Areas in the world. == Filmography ==