“He was extraordinarily knowledgeable about art, science and medicine. He felt that he had a responsibility to educate as well as entertain” words from his agent Ms. Nesbitt.

Michael Crichton was born at Chicago in October 23th 1942 and graduated at Harvard in anthropology in 1964. After spending 1 year teaching anthropology at Cambridge University, he entered at Harvard Medical School in 1966. Like majority of students, he had to work to pay his studies and it was in this time that he started to write – mainly like Ian Fleming book themes with the pseudonym John Lange and Jeffery Hudson.

Unusually tall around 6 feet 7 inches, he knew about everything from dinosaurs to nanotechnology and one of his best-sellers is “The Terminal Man” written in 1972.

He won his first Edgar Award for his book “A Case of Need” published in 1968 and got his medical degree in 1969. He was an actively member of the governing board of The Gorilla Foundation to protect this animal which are endangered species.

Since the success of his book “Andromeda Strain” (1969), he wrote under his own name and starting to be more and more famous. Environmentalists were furious against him about his skeptical point of view on climate change with the book “State of Fear” written in 2004 but especially when he testified it in front of a senatorial committee while he had no climatology degree !!! His answering to those critics was that he accepted the reality of climate change but its dangers could not be known with any certainty and environmentalists had exaggerated a “little.” Not only in the book domain he was famous but also in TV and in movie. He created “ER” TV series in 1994 and directed “Pursuit” - an adaptation of

one of his early novels for television. In the 1980s, he directed some movies like “Runaway” (1984) or “Physical Evidence” (1989).

Of course, his path was not only full of success but it also included some failure like his book “Sphere” (1987) declared a disappointment by many reviewers.

During the filming of one of his best-sellers “Jurassic Park” (1990), Stephen Spielberg said “Michael’s talent out scaled even his own dinosaurs of Jurassic Park. He was the greatest at blending science with big theatrical concepts, which is what gave credibility to dinosaurs again walking the earth.” The movie has been released in 1993 and it was a blockbuster which created sequels until Jurassic Park 4 (scheduled release in 2009).

Many of his works have been adapted to the big screen like “Rising Sun” (book 1992 – movie 1993), “Congo” (book 1980 – movie 1995), “Twister” (1996), “Disclosure” (1994), “Sphere” (book 1987 – movie 1998) and much more.

Selling more than 150 million books worldwide and translated more than 30 languages, Michael Crichton, a remarkably writer with a restless imagination and juggling roles as a novelist, screenwriter and director, died November 4th 2008 at the age of 66 in Santa Monica, California from a cancer.

November 6, 2008

 

Previous

Next