Michael Crichton

John Michael Crichton was born in 1942 in Chicago, Illinois, but he spent most of his childhood on Long Island in New York. He showed early promise as a writer when an essay he’d written about a trip to Arizona was published in the New York Times. In 1960, he began his college career at Harvard University. Although he initially pursued an English major, he switched to biological anthropology after concluding that at least some of his literature professors were more interested in grading harshly than nurturing their students’ talents. Crichton graduated in 1964 and was accepted into Harvard Medical School in 1965. Despite hating medical school, he completed his MD degree in 1969. He made no attempt to gain licensure or practice medicine; instead, after a brief fellowship at the Salk Institute, he turned full time to his literary career. This had begun during medical school, with the publication of several pseudonymous novels. In 1969, he published The Andromeda Strain—his first novel under his own name, and the one that established his career as a bestselling author. By 1971, it had been adapted into a movie. Throughout the 1970s, Crichton wrote a series of historical novels and began directing film adaptations of his works. In the 1980s and 1990s, his work turned to speculative and science fiction topics with increasing frequency, including Jurassic Park, its sequel The Lost World,  Prey (a book about nanotechnology and artificial intelligence), and State of Fear (which follows the attempts of a band of eco terrorists to bring attention to the danger of global warming). Crichton was married five times, with four of his marriages ending in divorce. He had two children: a daughter with his fourth wife, and a son born to his fifth wife shortly after his untimely death. In early 2008, Crichton was diagnosed with lymphoma. He continued to work until his death at the age of 66.