Jim Thompson biography
Jim Thompson, byname of James H.w. Thompson, (born March 21, 1906, Greenville, Del., U.S.—died March 26, 1967, close to Tanah Rata, Malaysia?), American-born Thai businessman who turned Thai silk making into a serious business promoting worldwide and have become an authority on Thai artwork. His mysterious disappearance in 1967 grew to become a sensation in Southeast Asia and elsewhere.
The son of a rich textile producer, Thompson graduated from Princeton University (1928) and studied structure on the University of Pennsylvania. After working as an architect in New York City from 1931 to 1940, he served as an intelligence officer within the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) throughout World War II in North Africa, Europe, and the China-Burma-India theatre, ending up in Bangkok. In the postwar interval, in 1947, he returned to Thailand completely, got interested within the previous cottage business of silk weaving, and, by his influential contacts in America, started promoting luxurious silks in New York City and elsewhere. His Thai Silk Company, Ltd., was based in 1948. He bought to couturiers and achieved a coup in offering the silks used for the costumes of the musical The King and I (1951). By the Nineteen Sixties enterprise was flourishing and impressed the expansion of a number of Thai rivals in an increasing business.
Meanwhile, Thompson grew to become a Thai artwork collector and in-built central Bangkok a splendid Thai-style house (now open to vacationers). He grew to become the best-known Western foreigner in Bangkok and maybe in all Southeast Asia.
On a vacation journey to the Cameron Highlands of Malaya in 1967, Thompson mysteriously disappeared after leaving his cottage for a stroll by jungle trails. No hint of him was ever discovered, and speculations had been that he was kidnapped for ransom or political functions, or dedicated suicide, or deliberately ran off to a brand new life, or—most probably—met with an accident within the rugged, creviced jungle.