Roslyn was once home to two major American literary figures, William Cullen Bryant and Christopher Morley. With the library and Cedarmere, Bryant's legacy is a daily reminder; in addition, Morley's writing quarters have been preserved as a home open to visitors on weekends at the large park in Searingtown bearing his name.

Neither man grew up in Roslyn; they simply found the village a refuge from city life. One noted American writer who did grow up in Roslyn is Michael Crichton. A prolific novelist and screenwriter, Michael Crichton has no new book or movie on the market, but his career has already made a mark on modern American culture.

Born in Chicago, Michael Crichton moved with his family to Roslyn when he was still a child. He graduated from Roslyn High School in 1960 and matriculated at Harvard College that fall. While at Harvard, Crichton entertained thoughts of becoming a writer, but after a professor offered a dim opinion of his writing talents, Crichton changed direction, eventually earning a degree in anthropology.

After college and two years as a fellow at Cambridge University in England, Crichton entered Harvard Medical School. To pay for tuition, he turned again to writing, churning out a slew of paperback adventure novels under the pseudonym, John Lange. A big man (6'6" in height), the young Crichton already had the discipline and stamina to write up to 10,000 words at a sitting.

Crichton's first serious novel, The Andromeda Strain was published in 1970. The plot centered around four scientists trying to "save the world from...a lethal...strain of bacteria." As with several of his other novels, it was turned into a movie. Crichton soon moved to Hollywood and began a new career, this one as a director. Indeed, Crichton had always tended toward film work. As he told an interviewer in 1975, "I've always wanted to direct movies. My first hero was Alfred Hitchcock. I knew who [he] was long before I knew who Charles Dickens was." Among the movies Crichton would direct included Westworld, a film about "out-of-control androids" in a futuristic theme park and Coma, a film based on the best-selling novel by Robin Cook.

In the early '90s, Crichton achieved his largest audience with two more bestseller novels that also were adapted into popular films: Jurassic Park (1990) and Rising Sun (1993). Jurassic Park especially continues the main theme of Crichton's work: the impact of high technology on either a contemporary or futuristic society. Crichton co-wrote the screenplay for Jurassic Park, which was directed by Stephen Spielberg and ended up as one of the most popular films of all time. Similar to Westworld, Jurassic Park is a futuristic work about a billionaire who hopes to build a dinosaur theme park. The billionaire unwittingly hires a mad team of bioengineers who bring these dinosaurs to life. The dinosaurs promptly break out of the confines of the theme park, wreaking havoc everywhere. Despite the film's commercial success, some critics felt the film's special effects and sensationalist action plot clouded the more serious questions of scientists meddling into the secrets of life.

The less titillating Rising Sun is a murder mystery set in Los Angeles that as a subplot focuses on the business ethos of a Japanese company and their plans to wrestle emerging high-tech markets away from American firms. Written at a time when American anxiety over Japanese economic prowess was high, Rising Sun also enjoyed commercial and critical success. One reviewer claimed the problem with the novel was not the idea that the U.S. should wage economic war itself against Japan, but that the book itself was simply "far too entertaining." Crichton's next major effort, Disclosure (1995), highlighted corruption and competition in the U.S. computer industry and also tackled the delicate issue of harassment in the workplace.

In addition to his work as a novelist, screenwriter and director, Crichton has also written several works of non-fiction, including a biography of the painter, Jasper Johns. Even though Crichton's work explores the often catastrophic impact of technology on the modern world, his 1983 book, Electronic Life: How to Think About Computers, was written to dispel fears over the emerging computer-era and to show how such gadgets can be beneficial to average citizens.

Crichton is still writing, but for the time being he is no longer directing. As with numerous talented Long Islanders, Crichton made the move from the East Coast to Hollywood, with wholly successful results. Whatever happens, Crichton has proven himself to be a force in both literature and film, doing so on his own terms and with his own vision.

---(Information for this article was culled from short biographies of Michael Crichton in the 1993 Current Biography Yearbook and the Biography Resource Center.)