John Michael Crichton was born in 1942 in Chicago, Illinois. He went to Harvard Medical School and had his first novels published while he was still a student there. His breakthrough came with the publication of his first best seller The Andromeda Strain in 1969.
During his career Crichton wrote a total of 27 novels, most notably Jurassic Park which was made into a film by Steven Spielberg. He also wrote 4 works of non-fiction and several short stories. In addition he worked as a film director, with Westworld perhaps his most famous work and as a producer, on the TV series ER and the film Twister. He died in 2008 at the age of 66.
Did you know that Michael Crichton's first novels were published under the pen name John Lange? Or that he appeared in as 'the Bearded Surgeon' in the film version of his novel The Andromeda Strain? What else do you know about the life and works of Michael Crichton? Test yourself in this quiz.
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Westworld has a similar theme to Crichton's later work Jurassic Park. In both a theme park goes horribly wrong
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The Andromeda Strain was Crichton's sixth novel to be published, but the first published under his own name
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A disaster is caused by a combination of faulty parts and human error
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The book was a bestseller and is probably Michael Crichton's best known novel - even more so after the film version was made 3 years later
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That same year a film version of Disclosure was made starring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore
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Electronic Life was one of four non-fiction works by Crichton. He also wrote Five Patients (a description of patients' experiences in hospital), Jasper Johns (about the eponymous artist) and Travels (an autobiogrophy)
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The gorillas are guarding diamond mines
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He did it as an experiment. He got a B- grade!
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The book shares its name with the novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle which also features dinosaurs
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Dr Malcolm is declared dead at the end of the novel Jurassic Park, but he appears in the sequel, explaining that "the declaration was premature"
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