Who was Jane Goodall’s first husband, Hugo Van Lawick? Split and more explored

Jane Goodall's first husband, Hugo Van Lawick, was a Dutch photographer and filmmaker. As per Goodall's conversation with People in July 2020, Jane first met her husband in 1962 when he came to photograph her for National Geographic in Tanzania.

Hugo van Lawick passed away on June 2, 2002, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, at the age of 65. His death came just a few years after he was forced to retire in 1998 due to emphysema.

Jane Goddall passed away on October 1 at 91, due to natural causes in California during a speaking tour in California. Her institute, in a social media statement, said:

"Dr. Goodall's discoveries in an ethologist revolutionized science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world."

More about Jane Goodall's split with Hugo Van Lawick

Jane Goodall, during a May 2025 appearance on Alex Cooper's Call Her Daddy podcast, revealed more about her first meeting with her first husband, Hugo Van Lawick, and said:

"They (National Geographic) wanted to make a film and they wanted good photographs, so they sent Hugo Van Lawick and I really didn't want him to come. I hadn't met him because I just wanted to be there with the chimps, you know, I didn't want anybody and I was afraid they'd be scared of him and, you know, all my hard work would be undone."

However, despite her fear, Hugo and the animals "got on fine." The two tied the knot in 1964, before splitting up in 1974. They share one child, son Hugo Eric Louis. While recalling the split, Jane mentioned that National Geographic stopped funding Hugo's visits to Gombe, Tanzania, where Jane was working:

"He had to go on with his career and he got some money to do films on the Serengeti, and I couldn't leave Gombe. I had to stay...I couldn't leave Gombe and so it slowly drifted apart. And it was sad."

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Despite noting that the two did "the right thing" at the time, Jane Goodall admitted that she wished they would "have carried on with that marriage because it was a good one."

A year after splitting from Hugo Van Lawick, Jane married Tanzanian parks director Derek Bryceson. Bryceson died in 1980. In a 2020 interview with People, Jane revealed why she decided not to get married a third time. Jane mentioned that she didn't meet "the right person" or "potentially the right person."

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