The King of Crisis, the Adept of Anxiety, the Preeminence of Pressure - Michael Crichton - died of cancer Tuesday morning at the age of 66. He will no longer tower (at 6'9" he really does tower) over the nation. With pretty much the entirety of mainstream media focusing on Barack Obama's election to the presidency, Michael Crichton's death seemed to slip onto the back burner. Author, screenwriter and director, Michael Crichton is known for works such as ER, The Congo, Twister, TIMELINE, The Andromeda Strain and of course, I owe my childhood nightmares featuring the ferocious T. Rex to his most famous novel-turned-movie(-turned theme park, thanks Universal Studios): Jurassic Park. Born in Chicago but raised in Roslyn, Long Island, Crichton's role models were Mark Twain and Alfred Hitchcock and he spent his childhood writing extra papers for his teachers, churning out a nine-page play in the third grade. Acknowledging that it would be incredibly difficult to make a living as an author, he briefly studied anthropology at Harvard College but graduated from Harvard Medical School, all the while writing and publishing under pseudonyms. He wrote his first hit, The Andromeda Strain while still in medical school and rapidly became popular after its release in 1969. Realizing that writing was his true passion and that he was at least moderately successful, he decided to pursue it and the rest, as they say, is history.
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