MIAMI, Florida (4 Mar 2003) -- Curious, the tracks left by a person of substance: a body of work, memories etched in the minds of those who knew him. Perhaps a family. Or two. So it is with Jacques Cousteau, the irrepressible ''manfish'' who fought to save the planet, but left his personal affairs in such a mess they were still being sorted out last week in a Miami courtroom almost six years after his death. Two families -- his first wife's grandchildren, and his second wife who was his longtime mistress, claimed rights to the fabled Cousteau name. The first family is that of Philippe Cousteau, the younger of Jacques' two sons by his first marriage. Philippe's 1979 death by plane crash left a widow, Jan, a daughter and an unborn son. This son, also named Philippe, is now 23. His sister Alexandra is 26. They are water babies of the first order. Jacques taught Alexandra scuba diving at age 7. Her father started her swim lessons at 10 months. They share their grandparents' and father's love of the sea, along with the passionate need to protect the ''water planet'' Jacques first named long ago. The challenge facing Philippe and Alexandra, who with their mother, have formed the Philippe Cousteau Foundation at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution in Vero Beach: How to be Cousteaus without overly claiming to be. Under the terms of what lawyers called a ''delicate compromise'' reached last week, they can use the name -- just not too much. Neither side can discuss the terms of the compromise. The fractures of the Cousteau family are apparent in its nonprofit organizations. The oldest: The Cousteau Society, formed in 1973. At its peak in 1990, the Society had more than 250,000 members in the United States. Annual donations of $8 million supported expeditions and research projects. Now this group, shrunken to half its former size, and most of the Cousteau fortune, is in the hands of Jacques' widow, Francine, a former airline stewardess. She was scandalously young -- more than three decades younger than Jacques -- when the Captain began his long affair with her before Simone, his first wife and grandmother to Philippe and Alexandra, died in 1990. Although never visible in the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau series, Simone played a key role in the operation at sea, Jan says, acting as ''mother, healer, nurse and psychiatrist'' to the all-male crew. For 40 years, her nickname was La Bergre, the shepherdess. After Simone's death, Jacques, then 80, was free to marry Francine, who already had given birth to two of Jacques' children. This new family eventually inherited most of the Cousteau estate -- hundreds of films, images, control over the Cousteau Society and even the fabled ship Calypso. Before his death in June 1997, Jacques Cousteau logged more miles on the Calypso and other ships than can be counted. His last mission, a voyage around the world, was not just a re-discovery. It was a way of life. ''He was a . . . fantastic showman,'' says Jan Cousteau. ''Cecil B. DeMille had nothing on Jeek'' -- the nickname used by family and friends. Alexandra recalls him as ''magical, tender, funny and so brilliant that he was able to make even the dullest topics come to life.'' Philippe found his French grandfather more distant. The two visited only a few times a year. ''Unfortunately, he was not really a father figure for me,'' Philippe says. ``But we had some interesting talks. Once he told me he thought that electricity would someday be used as a form of currency instead of cash.'' A civil lawsuit filed two years ago by the Cousteau Society, which Francine Cousteau now directs, sought to deny Jan, Philippe and Alexandra ''their basic right to family,'' according to their lawyer, Rich Robol of Columbus, Ohio. Joel Hirschhorn, Francine's $600-an-hour Miami attorney, countered that Jacques' final will and testament gave Francine control over the Cousteau name, and that www.cousteaufoundation.org, the Philippe Cousteau Foundation's website, confused people. LEGAL FEES Robol and Ned McLeod said they represented Jan and her children pro bono. In the past two years, Hirschhorn said, the Cousteau Society, which the late Philippe Cousteau helped found, paid ''hundreds of thousands of dollars'' in legal fees to defend Francine's exclusive use of the name, and to exclude Alexandra from efforts to restore the Calypso, an effort she initiated. | | Grandaughter Alexandra, left, grandson Philippe and daughter-in-law Jan under images of Jacques Cousteau. (Philip Brooker) A second family feud over the use of the Cousteau name reached the courts years ago. Jacques' last years were marked by battles with his son Jean-Michel over use of the Cousteau name for the resort Jean-Michel runs in Fiji. The son settled, but remained bitter. ''Just because my stepmother bears my father's name, she can't wave a magic wand and make herself a Cousteau,'' Jean-Michel told a Boston Globe reporter in 1998. After Francine took over as president of the Cousteau Society in 1997, Jean-Michel parted company. With the help of other Cousteau Society refugees, he formed his own environmental organization, oceanfutures.com. Oceanfutures' biggest project has been the $20 million translocation of a famous killer whale named Keiko, also known as Willy -- as in Free Willy. Jean-Michel Cousteau still lives in Fiji. Although the parties are friendly, his group is not listed as an ally of the foundation named for his brother. Nor is the Philippe Cousteau Foundation linked to his. FAMILY TRADITION For Philippe's children, the joy of growing up Cousteau was shrouded in sorrow by an accident that took their father's life. Alexandra traveled with her parents on expeditions, joining her mother Jan as she worked with the support crew for expeditions that Philippe led. In 1979, Philippe was testing a repair on his seaplane when Jan received terrible news. ''It was two days before they found the plane,'' Jan Cousteau recalls. After Philippe's death, Jan kept his memory alive, asking her growing children, ``What would Papa think about that? What would Papa do?'' In eighth grade, Philippe wrote an essay on ethics that referenced his father. Today, the educational video produced by the Philippe Cousteau Foundation, Journey Through the Everglades, is carrying on that family tradition. The video has been seen by 25,000 Florida high school students and distributed to more than 20 Florida school districts. Designed to be FCAT-compatible, it is also the pilot for future feature projects involving the Cousteaus of Vero Beach. ''I think in many ways, Philippe was the spirit of a father who was there every day,'' Jan says. ``And that was a very strong spirit. That is a very strong spirit.' Jacques and even Philippe Cousteau were born into a black-and-white world where underwater images of living whales had never been seen. Now, breaching humpback whales are digitized into commercials for insurance companies, and Blue Planet and IMAX movies show underwater life with staggering intimacy. Jan is nonplussed. ''Philippe and Alexandra are young,'' Jan says proudly. ''They're intelligent and creative. And I have no doubt they'll move ahead in this field. ''Jeek was a hero to a lot of people back in the 1970s. . . . Maybe Alexandra and Philippe will be somebody's hero.'' SOURCE - eNews |
