John Everingham

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John Everingham is the father of Thai-Australian actor and heart-throb Ananda Everingham. He is an Australian journalist residing in Thailand, who started in photojournalism in the mid 1960s, as a teenager trekking through Indochina and learning the languages. He began in journalism as a translator for TV crews covering the Vietnam War. He gained international fame when he sought asylum for his Laotian wife Keosiri Sirisomphone, by swimming her out of Laos under the Mekong River near Vientiane using scuba equipment. The story was turned into a TV movie by Michael Landon[1], called Love is Forever,[2] based on an article Everingham had written for Reader's Digest.

In 1983, Everingham was instrumental in introducing British treasure hunter Richard Knight to American photojournalist Cork Graham. The story of the two men being imprisoned by Vietnam for sneaking onto an island near the Cambodia/Vietnam border became a bestselling memoir in 2004, called The Bamboo Chest. Knight had read the Reader's Digest article about John and Keosiris' escape from Laos and initially offered Everingham the opportunity to photograph his treasure hunt to Vietnam.

During the war he received acclaim for his reporting on the effects of B-52 dumping runs on their way back to bases in Udon Thani, Thailand--When bombers didn't drop all their payload over Hanoi, they dumped their bombs in Laos to cut the risk of accidents on landing. This led to innocent rural Lao and Hmong being killed.

John Everingham is the managing director of ArtAsia Press, CO LTD.[3]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Love Is Forever at the Internet Movie Database
  2. ^ The Saga of John Everingham [1]
  3. ^ ArtAsia Press, CO LTD[2]