ach subject. These bestselling novels have been translated into over 20 languages, worldwide.Crichton was born on October 23, 1942 in Chicago. His father, a journalist, moved the family to Roslyn, New York, a suburb of New York City, when Michael was 6. The oldest of four children, he was also the first to be published. The New York Times published a travel article from him when he was 14. Since Crichton s first taste of public writing was so rewarding, it helped him decide that writing was what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.was a star basketball player in Roslyn High School from which he graduated in 1960. Crichton then decided to go to Harvard University and become a writer. But Harvard proved to be very disheartening for the young writer. His writing style was severely criticized and his grades hovered around a C.the age of eighteen he decided that it was Harvard, and not he, that was in error. Convinced of this he hesitatingly retyped an essay of George Orwell (1903-1950) and submitted it as his own. The professor did not catch his plagiarism, and gave Orwell a B. Crichton was convinced that the Harvard English Department was too hard for him. George Orwell, his real name was Eric Arthur Blair was educated in England and won a schola rship to Eton, where Aldous Huxley was won of his teachers. Orwell was a brilliant scholar and after quitting his service with the Indian Imperial Police in 1928, which he joined in Burma, he decided to make his living as a writer. For the next few years he lived in Paris and London, publishing articles and working as a tutor, teacher, dishwasher, and clerk in a bookstore. Out of his varied experiences came Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), for which he first used his pen name George Orwell, and his early novels, A Clergyman s Daughier ( 1935) and Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936). During the war years Orwell wrote many articles for newspapers as well as critical essays and books about England, among them The Lion and the Unicorn (1941). His experiment with Orwell, Michael Crichton decided to study anthropology. After graduating from Harvard, Crichton, now twenty-three, was a visiting lecturer in anthropology at Cambridge University, in England. Crichton also won a Henry Russell Shaw Fellowship and got to travel in Europe and North Africa for a year. Upon his return to the States, Crichton began training as a doctor. He eventually graduated with his MD from Harvard Medical School in 1969, but never became a licensed practitioner of medicine.paid his way through medical school by writing thrillers under different names. A book written during his medical days under the name of Jeffery Hudson, A Case of Need, had many lightly disguised references to people at Harvard, and they were not all complimentary. So, Crichton was in trouble when the book won the Edgar Award for the Best Mystery of the Year. He claims that grades at Harvard were given according to people s informal opinion of the student. Students, who wrote, especially those who wrote about the medical profession, were asking for trouble.Crichton s final year at medical school The Andromeda Strain was published. It was a bestseller and Crichton sold it to Hollywood. Crichton then gained a celebrity status around the hospital that he did not particularly want. Although, it may have helped him get the hospital directors cooperation in researching his first non-fiction publication, Five Patients: The Hospital Explained. For that book Crichton was named the 1970 Medical Writer of the Year by The Association of American Medical Writers.served for one year (1969-70) as a postdoctoral fellow at the Jonas Salk Institute for Biological Science in La Jolla, California, before taking up writing full time. Later, Crichton said of his decision: To quit medicine to become a writer struck most people like quitting the Supreme Court to become a bail bondsman. is also the Creator and Executive Producer of the television series ER , which he actually created right after his medical days. The popular television series ER is almost a direct replay of his days in the emergency room. In 1995, ER won eight Emmys and Crichton himself received an award from the Producers Guild of America in the category of outstanding multi-episodic series. Later that year, he also was honored with the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for ER . Is a computer expert who wrote one of the first books about information technology (Electronic Life, 1983) and a collector of modern art and an accomplished traveler.has also had many experie...
