My Thai included in Delaware Magazine

Please note: This page contains dated information.

“An Old Thai to Delaware”

Hope Anderson thinks it’s a shame that the amazing life of [the modern ] Thai Silk industry founder and native Delawarean Jim Thompson has been overshadowed by his disappearance 34 years ago. That’s why she made the documentary film “Jim Thompson [Silk King]”, which will show at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival this month [Sept. 2001].

“He was a genius who lifted thousands of Thais out of poverty,” Anderson says. “People forget that. I was determined to revive his story,” Thompson was born into a wealthy Greenville [Delaware] family in [1906] and raised to be an “upper-class non-entity,” Anderson says. He worked for a short time in New York City as an architect who designed summer homes for the well-to-do, grew bored with his life, then volunteered to fight in World War II. After the war he landed in Bangkok in 1947, where he became infatuated by silk and taught himself the art of textile coloring, Thus an industry was born.

Anderson knew of Thompson in the 1960s through a network of American expatriates in Southeast Asia that included her parents. “I remember going to his house as a child and seeing all these amazing colors shimmering in the sunlight,” Anderson says.

On Easter Sunday shortly thereafter, Thompson disappeared without a trace while taking a walk in a Malaysian resort. “It was,” Anderson says, “a fascinating end to a fascinating life.”

Anderson, a freelance script reader and writer from Los Angeles, filmed on location at Thompson’s former home in Bangkok, where the Thai Silk industry is still thriving. She is shopping her film to various studios and PBS in hopes of making a longer version.

In the meantime, those who can’t attend the New York festival September 7-14 [2001] will be able to view Anderson’s film at My Thai in Wilmington’s Trolley Square as part of Art Loop activities on September 7 [2001]. Owners Joel and Uthairat Wilson will also display pictures of Thailand and Thompson’s home by local photographer Beth Eriksen.

“Our store wouldn’t be possible without Jim Thompson,” says Joel Wilson. “He really brought Thai Silk – and Thailand – to the rest of the world’s attention.”

--M.N.

*note* For more information the documentary "Jim Thompson: Silk King" by Hope Anderson please visit: http://www.silk-king.com/.

My Thai included in Delaware Magazine

(reprint of text as appeared in Delaware Today, September 2001)