American writer, the author of best-selling sci-fi thrillers, many of which were made into movies. Handsome, 6′ 9″, he was a physician and assistant to Dr. Jonas Salk. By age 30 he had sold over 300 articles to prestigious magazines and quit medicine when “Andromeda Strain” 1969, became a great hit.
The oldest of four kids of advertising executive, John Henderson and Zula (Miller) Crichton, Michael was raised with sisters Kimberly and Catherine and brother Douglas in Roslyn, Long Island. English usage was the favorite subject of conversation at the dinner table. Crichton wrote scripts for puppet shows in the third grade and long short-stories in the sixth grade. He sold an article to the travel section of the “Times” for $60 at age 14. Crichton enjoyed reading Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Arthur Conon Doyle as a kid but credits Alfred Hitchcock movies as the major influence in fueling his love of crime and suspense drama.
After a B.A. degree summa cum laude in anthropology at Harvard in 1964 he did anthropological and ethnological field work in Europe on a travel fellowship. While in England he was impressed with the popular spy novel “The Ipcress File” which later influenced his first major writing success “The Andromeda Strain.” While at Harvard Medical School Crichton published several novels under pseudonyms to earn money while working for his M.D. degree. During the last few months as a medical student, Crichton researched “Five Patients; The Hospital Explained” which was hailed as “an elegant, wise, and exciting study” by his peers and earned him “1970 Medical Writer of the Year” by the Association of American Medical Writers. As a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California after his graduation from the Harvard Medical School, Crichton decided that he was not dedicated enough to practice medicine and decided upon a writing career.
Crichton went on to write “The Terminal Man” as well as pseudonymous output. He wrote and directed the movie “Westworld.” Other major works include “The Great Train Robbery” (he also directed the film) “Travels,” “Congo,” “Sphere,” “Jurassic Park” and “Rising Sun.”
Crichton was married to high school sweetheart Joan Radam for five years (1965-1970). He married lawyer Kathleen St. Johns, but that marriage ended when she wanted to pursue her own career. His third marriage to Suzanne Childs, a broadcast journalist turned lawyer, also ended. He met his fourth wife, actress Anne-Marie Martin, when he was directing Tom Selleck in the movie “Runaway” in 1984. They married in 1987 and have a daughter named Taylor, 2/08/1989. He gave up a 19-year cigarette habit when she was born. Crichton lives in the Hollywood Hills and has an art collection including works by Oldenburg, Johns, Rauschenberg, Stella, Warhol and Lichtenstein. He once enjoyed auto racing, but went on to concentrate on SCUBA diving and tennis. He reads approximately 300 books a year and enjoys watching approximately 60 movies a year. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and is a member of the Writers Guild of America West, the Mystery Writers of America and the Author’s Guild.
On 9/05/2002, Anne Marie filed for divorced from their 13-year marriage. Proceedings were apparently supposed to be kept hush-hush, but now Crichton claims that attorney Stephen Kolodny made statements on television earlier this month about the couple’s marriage and about Crichton’s relationship with his 13-year-old daughter, and he counter-sued on 11/14/2002.
Crichton died of cancer on November 4, 2008 in Los Angeles at age 66.
Link to Wikipedia biography