Crichton, (John) Michael

▪ 2009

      American author, physician, and television and motion picture producer-director

born Oct. 23, 1942, Chicago, Ill.

died Nov. 4, 2008, Los Angeles, Calif.

used his medical training and vivid imagination to pen wildly popular fictional tales that blended scientific and technological themes amid a fast-paced narrative; he was also the creator of the Emmy Award-winning TV series ER (1994–2009). Among Crichton's blockbuster thrillers were the novels The Andromeda Strain (1969; filmed 1971, TV miniseries 2008), which focused on an alien virus, and Jurassic Park (1990; co-writer of 1993 screenplay), the story of cloned dinosaurs run amok. Under the pseudonym John Lange, he penned eight thrillers, including Odds On (1966) and Binary (1972; teleplay Pursuit), and under the name Jeffrey Hudson, Crichton wrote the Edgar Award-winning medical detective novel A Case of Need (1968; filmed as The Carey Treatment [1972]), which centred on the moral issues surrounding abortion. After earning his M.D. (1969), Crichton conducted research briefly at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, Calif., but on the merits of his success with The Andromeda Strain, he began writing full time. After publishing the nonfiction Five Patients (1970), he returned to the techno-thriller genre with The Terminal Man (1972; filmed 1974), Sphere (1987; filmed 1998), The Lost World (1995; filmed 1997), a sequel to Jurassic Park, and Prey (2002). Crichton's screenplays include The Great Train Robbery (1979), Congo (1995), and Rising Sun (1993)—all based on his books—and Coma (1978) and Twister (1996). His novel State of Fear (2004), which debunked the theory of global warming, was widely panned by scientists.

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