Sir Edmund Percival Hillary, KG, ONZ, KBE (20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineer and explorer. On 29 May 1953 at the age of 33, he and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers known to have reached the summit of Mount Everest - see Timeline of climbing Mount Everest. They were part of the ninth British expedition to Everest, led by John Hunt. He was named by Time magazine as one of 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
Hillary became interested in mountaineering while in secondary school, making his first major climb in 1939, reaching the summit of Mount Ollivier. He served in the RNZAF as a navigator during World War II. Before the successful expedition in 1953 to Everest, he had been part of a reconnaissance expedition to the mountain in 1951 and an unsuccessful attempt to climb Cho Oyu in 1952. As part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition he reached the South Pole overland in 1958. He would later also travel to the North Pole.
Following his ascent of Everest he devoted much of his life to helping the Sherpa people of Nepal through the Himalayan Trust, which he founded. Through his efforts many schools and hospitals were built in this remote region of Nepal.In 1975, Lady Louise Hillary and their daughter were killed in a light aircraft crash in the mountains.
It was not long after that event that I took this portrait and it reflects some of the grief, as well as the experience, that life has etched into the face of the Man of the Mountains.
Known throughout New Zealand as "Sir Ed," he was an approachable and affable person and always acknowledged casual greetings in the street.
A couple of years before his death, I attended a slide show and lecture given by him in Vancouver, Canada, and took along with me a copy of a book of my portraits that included this shot, After the lecture, when all the autograph hunters had been satisfied, I handed him the book, open at the portrait. He looked at it and then at me, exclaiming, "Good God, Dave Roberts, how the hell are you?" Although he was quite frail, his mind was as sharp as ever and we had a very pleasant conversation.