Michael Crichton: Jurassic Renaissance Man

Working inspires inspiration. Keep working. If you succeed, keep working. If you fail, keep working. If you are interested, keep working. If you are bored, keep working. —Michael Crichton

Imagine creating the nation’s number one book, number one movie, and number one television show all in the same year. Michael Crichton (1942–2008) achieved this twice: first in 1995 with The Lost World, Congo, and ER, respectively; and again in 1996 with Airframe, Twister, and ER.¹ Twenty-five years later, no other writer has accomplished this.

Hailed as the “Father of the Techno Thriller,” Michael Crichton built a flourishing career as a novelist, screenwriter, director, and producer that lasted more than forty years. During this time, he completed eighteen major novels—most of which were instant best sellers—developed more than a dozen into blockbuster films, and collaborated with some of Hollywood’s greatest artists.² By the time of his death at age sixty-six, his novels had sold more than two hundred million copies. Today, he is still best known around the world for writing Jurassic Park.³

How It All Began

Born John Michael Crichton in Chicago as the oldest of four children, he grew up on Long Island. He developed an interest in writing at an early age, inspired by his father, who was a journalist for Advertising Age.⁴ Crichton recalled, “I was the weird kid who wrote extra assignments the teacher didn’t ask for. I just did it because I liked writing so much. I was tall [Crichton grew to 6 foot 9] and gangly and awkward and I needed to escape, I guess.”⁵ By age fourteen, he had written his first published piece in the New York Times, which was about his trip to Sunset Crater, a volcanic national monument in Arizona.⁶ 

He began his undergraduate degree as an English major at Harvard University, diving into works by Mark Twain and Arthur Conan Doyle—two of his literary influences.⁷ There, his English professor was critical of his writing style. Crichton believed that his professor gave him unjustifiably poor grades, so he pranked him by submitting an essay by George Orwell as his own. His professor, who never discovered that it was plagiarism, gave him a B-, failing to recognize merit even in an established writer. Discouraged by his professor’s apparent lack of judgment, Crichton switched his major to anthropology.⁸ In 1964, he graduated summa cum laude and left for the United Kingdom to be a visiting lecturer in anthropology at the University of Cambridge.⁹

A year later, Crichton returned to Harvard, where he enrolled in medical school. To offset the cost of tuition, he wrote medical thriller novels under pseudonyms; he planned to become a doctor and didn’t want future patients to recognize his name and worry that he would use them as characters in his stories.¹⁰ He maintained an incredible work ethic during this time, often writing “16 hours a day for a week or two” and “turning out 10,000 words a day,” all the while studying for exams and attending classes.¹¹

Crichton was practically always working. By the end of his four years, he had completed seven novels and numerous manuscripts and screenplays. His fourth novel, A Case of Need, was a mystery thriller, set in a Boston medical center, that addressed abortion and racism and won the Edgar Allen Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1968.¹²

A Career Like No Other

In 1969, Crichton graduated from medical school and published The Andromeda Strain under his own name, instantly becoming a best-selling novelist and establishing himself as a leading writer in the techno-thriller genre.¹³ A movie adaptation was made in 1971, enticing Crichton to move to California, set aside a medical career (he never obtained a license to practice), and fully pursue his dream of being a writer. Once there, he indulged his creative flair, working as a screenwriter, director, and producer.

Crichton’s background in medicine and his passion for biology were evident in his work. His writing explored the ethical implications of scientific and technological achievements, simultaneously satisfying his own curiosity and entertaining his audience. The Terminal Man (1972; film in 1974) probed the dangers of mind control. The Great Train Robbery (1972; film in 1979), set in Victorian England, was Crichton’s first work of historical fiction. Congo (1980; film in 1995) chronicled adventurous explorers seeking a diamond mine in a tropical rain forest. He worked on these stories while running a computer software company called FilmTrack, which advanced motion picture production in the 1980s.¹⁴

Crichton then devoted the majority of his time to film. He wrote and directed Westworld (1973), a sci-fi Western movie in which people lived out their fantasies in a theme park filled with androids.¹⁵ He wrote and directed Coma (1978), based on Robin Cook’s novel about a mysterious tragedy in an operating room. Physical Evidence (1989) was Crichton’s final project as a director.¹⁶ He decided that directing was too time-consuming and that he much preferred writing.

When Crichton sold the rights for The Andromeda Strain to Universal, he met Steven Spielberg, who was working as a television director for Universal.¹⁷ The two visionaries became good friends, and Spielberg often inquired about Crichton’s story ideas. One day, Crichton revealed a plot about a theme park of biologically engineered dinosaurs that turns into a horrifying disaster. This sparked Spielberg’s interest and caused a bidding war between several major film companies. Crichton published this novel, Jurassic Park, in 1990, and Universal acquired the film rights with Spielberg as director. Spielberg later reminisced that he “had one of the best times of [his] career directing that script.”¹⁸ The film was a blockbuster success, as was its sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), both of which represented a giant leap forward in computer-generated images.

Spielberg recalled:

Michael brought credibility to incredible subject matter. He was a master builder of a scientific logic to keep the science fiction grounded so it could be believed by people all over the world. And I had not met anybody who had ever done that before. And he did it over and over again in a lot of films and books.¹⁹

“I always say Michael Crichton [wrote] science fact, not science fiction,” said Kathleen Kennedy, who produced Congo, Jurassic Park, and Crichton’s 1996 film Twister. “He was deeply interested in what was going on with technology and scientific experiments, but he always seemed to find a way to make complex ideas very accessible . . . through big entertainment.”²⁰ Crichton’s writing was clear and concise, which, paired with his meticulous research and immersive storytelling, thrilled audiences.

Between 1994 and 2009, Crichton created and developed the hit television series ER, which followed the lives and struggles of emergency physicians and made George Clooney a household name.²¹ During the show’s long and successful run, Crichton completed seven additional novels: Disclosure (1994; film in 1994) The Lost World (1995; film in 1997), Airframe (1996), Timeline (1999; film in 2003), Prey (2002), State of Fear (2004), and Next (2006).²² In 1995, he received the Academy Award for Technical Achievement for his continued work at FilmTrack.²³

Fighting Racism, Sexism, and Environmentalism

With exceptional success comes the scrutiny of critics—and Michael Crichton received a lot of it. He held that it was important to think critically about popular issues such as politics, ethics, and science, and he encouraged others to do the same. He carefully crafted his plots around these ideas, writing novels about racism, sexism, and environmentalism. Unfortunately, many of these were not well received.

Crichton wrote about racism in his novel Rising Sun (1992), a thrilling murder mystery in which he suggested that the Japanese, in certain ways, are far more technologically advanced than Americans but promote a profoundly racist culture. He was inspired to write this when he returned to Los Angeles from Asia and noticed inefficiencies in the airport customs department, remarking that it was “like coming to Pakistan.”²⁴ It was an eye-opener for him, after having visited Japan, which he noted had a more fast-paced and contemporary culture.²⁵

Accused of being racist himself for writing this novel, Crichton spoke in interviews about the public’s emotional reactions to things about which they know very little, pointing out that the novel served as a means of discussing foreign relations, economics, and morality. He was unhappy with the film adaptation, but his one consolation was that in the process he developed a cherished friendship with actor Sean Connery.

In Disclosure, Crichton addressed sexual harassment in the workplace by reversing stereotypical gender roles. Therein, a female executive sexually abuses her male coworker. The novel was severely criticized, and many labeled Crichton sexist and antifeminist. Others held that the story was exaggerated to make a point. However, he came up with the idea after hearing a real story about a woman who harassed her former male lover at work, and both accused the other of abuse.²⁶

Crichton thought that it was important to challenge the stereotypical beliefs that all men are predatory and violent—and that no women are. He believed that his novel would spark debates about the relationships between the two sexes and how to handle such situations in the workplace objectively. After his dissatisfaction with the Rising Sun film, he decided to produce and write the screenplay for Disclosure (the same reason he directed Westworld after being unhappy with the Terminal Man film).²⁷

Finally, in State of Fear, he chronicled environmentalists who concoct a plan for mass murder. Intended to challenge his audience about the legitimacy and severity of global warming, Crichton used this controversial plot to argue that scientific evidence for it is weak and that many accept widely held beliefs without independent knowledge of the facts that support them.²⁸ He wrote, “They just posture and pontificate. Nobody tests. Nobody does field research. Nobody dares to solve the problems—because the solution might contradict your philosophy, and for most people clinging to beliefs is more important than succeeding in the world.”²⁹ He wished to instill in his readers a sense of relief, suggesting that predictions of cataclysm are ungrounded. As Ian Malcolm states in Jurassic Park, “Let’s be clear. The planet is not in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy. We haven’t got the power to destroy the planet—or to save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves.”³⁰

Crichton recognized the power of technological progress and believed that we should not sacrifice human flourishing and rights for the sake of the planet. In 2003, he gave a speech to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco titled “Environmentalism as Religion,” during which he stated,

The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. . . . We must daily decide whether the threats we face are real, whether the solutions we are offered will do any good, whether the problems we’re told exist are in fact real problems, or non-problems. Every one of us has a sense of the world, and we all know that this sense is in part given to us by what other people and society tell us; in part generated by our emotional state, which we project outward; and in part by our genuine perceptions of reality.³¹

A Dinosaur-Sized Legacy

Michael Crichton’s early death in 2008 from lymphoma was a tragic moment in entertainment history. Those who had worked with him reminisced about his “stone-cold genius” and liveliness, recognizing that his legacy would be cherished throughout the ages and would inspire like-minded creatives.³²

Two completed manuscripts, Pirate Latitudes and Dragon Teeth, were discovered after Crichton’s death and published in 2009 and 2017.³³ Crichton also left an unfinished manuscript, Micro, which was completed by author Richard Preston and published in 2011.³⁴ In recent years, Crichton’s legacy continues to dominate pop culture with the hit HBO television series Westworld, blockbuster sequels to Jurassic Park, and theme park rides based on his stories. In 2002, a new dinosaur species was discovered and named the Crichtonsaurus in his honor.³⁵

Today, Sherri Alexander Crichton, his fifth wife, runs CrichtonSun, the estate that manages his work, including future film and television rights.³⁶ This enables his ideas to continue entertaining and inspiring people through new content. Crichton also left behind a prized art collection, initially valued at $75 million, which included pieces by Jasper Johns, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein.³⁷ He befriended and supported many popular artists, encouraging collaborations across different mediums. His daughter from his fourth marriage passionately stated, “These amazing works of art were so incredibly important to my father. Each piece brought him immense joy. . . . He was captivated by these artists and their work, and that love of art is a part of my own DNA because of him.”³⁸

“Michael was always referred to as a Renaissance man,” noted George Clooney:

That’s because he was so good at so many things. Doctor. Writer. Director. And he was a stunning six-foot-nine figure. He would walk in the room and all the rest of us mortals felt somewhat inadequate. It was something you had to see. He could reduce giant stars and brilliant directors to little kids looking up to this gentle giant.³⁹

It is remarkable that a single man achieved so much during his distinguished career while maintaining integrity to his ideas in the face of adversity. Michael Crichton is a source of unparalleled inspiration, demonstrating the power of an extraordinary imagination and showing how a few bold ideas are capable of sparking a worldwide revolution in entertainment.

About F. F. Mormanni

F. F. Mormanni is a Juilliard-trained flutist and harpist now working in finance. She is the author of Double Crossed, a medical techno-thriller. Learn more at ffmormanni.com.

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