| Best-selling US author Michael Crichton, who wrote such novels as The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park and created the popular TV drama ER, has died unexpectedly at age 66, his family said.
Crichton, a medical doctor-turned-novelist and filmmaker whose books have sold more than 150 million copies worldwide, died on Tuesday (local time) in Los Angeles after what his family described as a "courageous and private battle against cancer".
"Michael's talent out-scaled even his own dinosaurs of Jurassic Park," filmmaker Steven Spielberg, who directed the blockbuster movie version of that novel and its sequel, The Lost World, said in a statement.
"He was the greatest at blending science with big theatrical concepts, which is what gave credibility to dinosaurs again walking the Earth."
"Michael was a gentle soul who reserved his flamboyant side for his novels. There is no one in the wings that will ever take his place."
The family statement, which was released through a publicist, called Crichton's death "unexpected" but released few other details about his passing and requested privacy.
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6 November 2008, ABC News Online | 
