Michael Crichton

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Michael Crichton (2002)

John Michael Crichton [ ˈkɹaɪtn̩ ] (born October 23, 1942 in Chicago , Illinois , † November 4, 2008 in Los Angeles ) was an American writer , screenwriter , director and film producer .

life and work

Michael Crichton was the first of four children of journalist John Henderson Crichton and his wife Zula Miller Crichton. He grew up in Roslyn , Long Island and had two sisters, Kimberly and Catherine, and a younger brother, Douglas. He studied at Harvard College (graduation, Bachelor of Arts BA, 1964) and medicine at Harvard Medical School (graduation MD, Doctor of Medicine, 1969). He then worked as a lecturer at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla , California . In 1988 he was visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology .

Crichton began to publish his first novels under the pseudonym John Lange as a student - an allusion to his height of 2.06 meters. Another (ironic) pseudonym is Jeffery Hudson - Jeffrey Hudson was Queen Henrietta Maria of France's favorite dwarf in the seventeenth century . Under the pseudonym Jeffery Hudson, he published his first hardcover novel "A Case of Need" (German: "The Intrigue"), in which he dealt with the topic of illegal abortion .

In 1971 he made a brief appearance as a surgeon in the film Andromeda - Deadly Dust from Space, based on his novel . In 1990, on behalf of Steven Spielberg , Warner Bros. acquired the rights to a script in which Crichton had already incorporated experience from his medical practice in 1974. This was as Emergency Room - The emergency room one of the most successful television series ever.

In 1999 he founded the computer game - development studio to its own to implement game ideas timeline studios. Due to the lack of success of the only published game, the Adventure Timeline (a conversion of his novel of the same name), the company was closed again in 2001. A newly discovered dinosaur species in China in honor Crichton was 2002 crichtonsaurus called. This was justified with the popularity that the dinosaurs gained through Crichton's novel Jurassic Park and the corresponding films.

In 2004, his controversial novel Welt in Angst came out. It is about ecoterrorists who want to trigger an artificial seaquake to keep the world in fear of climate change . The novel criticizes what the author believes is ideological science. Crichton thought the theses about global climate change were wrong; if there is any warming, then it is part of a natural cycle, since the earth has been warming since the last ice age . In science, these theses are rejected. Although the arguments put forward are plausible at first glance, they are actually bogus arguments that do not stand up to scientific scrutiny. Often they are just plain wrong. In fact, the reading clearly shows that Crichton fell for common pseudo-arguments from climate skeptics. Environmentalists accused him of misunderstanding facts as well as misinformation and denying the anthropogenic causes of global warming.

Shortly after the novel was published, in December 2004 a seaquake occurred in South Asia with devastating tsunamis , which underscored the topicality of the topic and brought the novel additional attention. Although a fictional work, it was awarded a journalism prize by the American Association of Petrol Geologists, which is affiliated with the oil industry.

Crichton wrote 26 novels and 11 screenplays. Many of his books were also box office hits as films, most notably Jurassic Park , for which he also wrote the script. As a director he has shot Westworld , Coma and Runaway - Spiders of Death , among others . He was a member of PEN America .

Michael Crichton has been married five times, divorced four times, and has one daughter. One of his wives was the Canadian actress Anne-Marie Martin . He died of cancer ( malignant lymphoma ) on November 4, 2008 at the age of 66 in Los Angeles .

Awards

bibliography

Jurassic Park
Novels
  • Odds On (1966; as John Lange)
    • German: The love trap. Translated by Anneli Christian. Bastei Taschenbuch # 36, 1971, DNB 720068525 .
  • Scratch One (1967; as John Lange)
    • German: Heisse Ware. Translated by Heinz Kausträter. Joke (action thriller # 66), 1969.
  • A Case of Need (1968; as Jeffery Hudson)
  • Easy Go (1968; also: The Last Tomb , 1974; as John Lange)
  • The Andromeda Strain (1969)
  • The Venom Business (1969; as John Lange)
  • Zero Cool (1969; as John Lange)
  • Drug of Choice (1970; as John Lange)
    • German: The devil drug. Translated by Heinz Kausträter. Verlag Buch und Welt (Kaiser-Krimi # 90), Klagenfurt 1970, DNB 1018624082 .
  • Grave Descend (1970; as John Lange)
    • English: Murder divers off Jamaica. Translated by Will Helm. Ullstein Books # 1387, 1971, ISBN 3-548-01387-2 .
  • Dealing: or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues (1970; as Michael Douglas, with Douglas Crichton)
  • The Terminal Man (1972)
    • German: Endstation. Translated by Norbert Wölfl. Droemer Knaur, 1973, ISBN 3-85886-020-4 . Also as: terminus. Translated by Alfred Hans. Goldmann # 13307, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-442-13307-6 .
  • Binary (1972)
    • English: Poison Bell over San Diego. Translated by Wilhelm Thaler. Ullstein Books # 1566, 1973, ISBN 3-548-01566-2 .
  • The Great Train Robbery (1973)
  • Westworld (1974)
  • Eaters of the Dead (1976; also: The 13th Warrior , 1988)
    • German: Those who eat their dead. Translated by Georg Schmidt. Droemer Knaur (Knaur-Taschenbücher # 60289), 1994, ISBN 3-426-60289-X . Also called: Black Fog. Translated by Georg Schmidt. In: Michael Crichton: Black Fog: Two Novels. Droemer Knaur (Knaur # 71130), Munich 1998, ISBN 3-426-71130-3 . Also called: The 13th Warrior. Translated by Georg Schmidt. Droemer Knaur (Knaur-Taschenbücher # 61613), 1999, ISBN 3-426-61613-0 .
  • Congo (1980)
  • Sphere (1987)
  • Rising Sun (1991)
  • Disclosure (1994)
    • German: Revelation. Translated by Michaela Grabinger. Droemer Knaur, 1994, ISBN 3-426-19349-3 .
  • Airframe (1996)
  • Twister (1996; with Anne-Marie Martin )
    • German: Twister: The other side of nature: The original script for the film. Translated by WM Riegel. Goldmann # 43673, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-442-43673-7 .
  • Timeline (1998)
    • German: Timeline. Translated by Klaus Berr. Blessing # 113, 2000, ISBN 3-89667-113-8 . Also as: Timeline: A journey into the middle of time. Translated by Klaus Berr. Goldmann # 45575, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-442-45575-8 .
  • Prey (2002)
  • State of Fear (2004)
  • Next (2006)
  • Pirate Latitudes (2009)
  • Micro (2011; with Richard Preston )
  • Dragon Teeth (2017)
  • The Andromeda Evolution (2019; with Daniel H. Wilson)
Short stories
  • Blood Doesn't Come Out (2003, in: Michael Chabon (Ed.): McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales )
Non-fiction
  • Five Patients: The Hospital Explained (1970)
    • German: emergency room. Translated by Norbert Wölfl. Droemer Knaur, 1972, ISBN 3-426-05573-2 . Also as: Emergency room: 5 fates between life and death. Translated by Norbert Wölfl. Droemer-Knaur (Knaur [-Taschenbücher] # 566), Munich, Zurich 1978, ISBN 3-426-00566-2 . Also as: Five patients. Translated by Daniela Huzly. Droemer Knaur (Knaur # 60469), 1995, ISBN 3-426-60469-8 .
  • Jasper Johns (1977)
  • Electronic Life: How to Think About Computers (1983)
    • German: Electronic Life. Translated by Tony Westermayr and Werner Alexi. Rowohlt, 1984, ISBN 3-498-00863-3 . Also as: Everyday life with microphones: Computer primer from A - Z. Translated by Tony Westermayr and Werner Alexi. Rowohlt (Rororo # 8129), Reinbek near Hamburg 1985, ISBN 3-499-18129-0 .
  • Travels (1988)
    • German: In the circle of the world. Translated by Alfred Hans. Rowohlt Taschenbuch (rororo # 12946), 1991, ISBN 3-499-12946-9 . Also as: Around the world: An author and his travels. Translated by Alfred Hans. Rowohlt-Taschenbuch-Verlag (Rororo # 24498), Reinbek near Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-499-24498-8 .

Filmography

Director
script
producer

literature

Web links

Commons : Michael Crichton  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Michael Crichton  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wikisource : Hudson, Jeffery (DNB00) January 29, 2011
  2. ↑ FAZ : Is climate change nothing but a hoax? March 22, 2007
  3. ↑ Mojib Latif : Are we getting the climate out of sync? Background and forecasts. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt 2007, p. 185.
  4. ↑ NZZ : Michael Crichton died November 6, 2008
  5. ↑ PEN American Center Annual Report , Vol. 2008-2009 , p. 23.
personal data
SURNAME Crichton, Michael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Crichton, John Michael (full name); Douglas, Michael (pseudonym); Hudson, Jeffery (pseudonym); Lange, John (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer, screenwriter, and director
DATE OF BIRTH October 23, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois
DATE OF DEATH November 4, 2008
Place of death los Angeles