Cork discloses in the book that he would get $1,800 an episode for a total of $10,800 before taxes. After all, Discovery would make a fortune off the show and to leave your home for a snake infested island for a few months should pay some decent scratch. Cork figured $25,000 an episode would be about right. Now you might think that reality pay is a big ticket and this show would run six episodes. He consulted with a friend, Mykel Hawke of Man, Woman, Wild fame and Mykel told him to take the job at the offered pay.
Cork lives there today and he is a pilot.Ībout five years ago Cork had an opportunity to join the cast of Treasure Quest: Snake Island. Ultimately he settled in Alaska to hunt, fish and literally get away from it all.
Later Cork went to college, got his degree and simply wanted to live a quiet life. So nothing about his background is ordinary and it was the most atypical first 25 years on this planet you can get. But it ended so badly he never wanted to go on another treasure hunt again.Ĭork then decided to work as an embedded photo journalist during the messy Central American wars of the 1980’s. He then spent nearly a year in a Vietnamese prison and most of it was spent in solitary confinement.
On June 16, 1983, Cork was arrested for illegally entering Viet Nam. Looking for adventure at age 19 he signed up to be a photographer on a treasure hunting expedition looking for loot stashed on the Vietnamese island of Phú Quốc by Captain Kidd. He came back to the United States to go to college, got bored and then dropped out. A little bit about Cork: He had your typical childhood growing up in Saigon, South Vietnam, to an undercover CIA father and Ecuadorian mother.