You’ve probably seen the movies. Jurassic Park, The Lost World, or maybe you’re a fan of the high-octane medical drama ER. But there is one thing about the man behind those stories that almost nobody realizes until they see a photo of him standing next to a "normal" person. Michael Crichton was massive.
Honestly, he wasn't just tall for a writer. He was tall for a professional athlete. Michael Crichton was 6 feet 9 inches tall. Think about that for a second. That is taller than Michael Jordan. It’s the kind of height that makes you the permanent center on a basketball team and ensures you never, ever find a pair of pants that fits off the rack. For Crichton, this wasn't just a fun piece of trivia to bring up at cocktail parties. It was a defining characteristic that shaped his entire worldview, his social life, and even the secret names he used to write his books.
The Reality of Living at 6'9"
Being that big in a world designed for people a foot shorter is basically a constant series of small humiliations and physical discomforts. Crichton was already 6'7" by the time he was only 13 years old. Imagine being a middle schooler and looking down at the top of your teachers' heads.
In his autobiography, Travels, he talked about how everyone laughed at him. Kids can be mean, sure, but when you're that much of an outlier, you don't just feel like a person; you feel like a landmark. He felt like a freak. This led to a profound sense of shyness and social detachment that stuck with him well into his adulthood.
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He once mentioned that standing in a crowded room was a nightmare. Why? Because the sound of people talking literally couldn't reach his ears. He was living in a different strata of air. If he wanted to hear a conversation, he had to physically stoop or find a chair, otherwise, he was just a solitary island floating above the party.
Interestingly, meeting Wilt Chamberlain—the NBA legend who stood 7'2"—actually helped his perspective. For once, Crichton had to look up. It gave him a rare moment of feeling "normal" by comparison.
The Secret Meaning Behind His Pen Names
When Crichton was at Harvard Medical School, he started writing novels to pay for "furniture and groceries." He didn't want his future patients to think their doctor was distracted by writing thrillers, so he used pseudonyms.
He didn't pick these names out of a hat. They were height jokes.
- John Lange: He used this for his early thrillers like Odds On. "Lange" means "long" in German.
- Jeffrey Hudson: This was the name he used for A Case of Need. Jeffrey Hudson was a famous 17th-century "court dwarf" in the service of Queen Henrietta Maria of France.
It was a bit of self-deprecating humor. He was either "the long guy" or he was ironically naming himself after one of the shortest famous people in history.
Did His Height Influence Jurassic Park?
There is a popular joke on the internet that Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park as a secret autobiography because he was the only person who actually knew what it felt like to be the size of a dinosaur.
While that's obviously a bit of a stretch, his physical presence definitely influenced how he was perceived in Hollywood. When he started directing movies like Westworld (1973), he wasn't just the smartest guy in the room; he was the most imposing. People listened when he talked because, well, it’s hard to ignore a 6'9" guy with a Harvard MD.
He once joked in a 1981 interview with People magazine about the rumors surrounding tall men and their, uh, "proportions." He cheekily told them, "All the rumors are true!" He clearly developed a sense of humor about his stature as he got older, even if it made his teenage years a total slog.
Practical Realities and Health
Living at that height comes with a cost. You can't ride most rollercoasters. Most economy airplane seats are a form of torture.
There's also the "shouting distance" problem. Crichton often felt isolated because the physical distance between his head and the people he was talking to created a literal barrier to intimacy. He spent a lot of his life exploring alternative medicine, meditation, and even psychics, partly to deal with the feeling of being "disconnected" from his own body and the world around him.
What We Can Learn From the "Giant" of Techno-Thrillers
Crichton's height is a reminder that even the most successful people in the world often start from a place of feeling like an outsider. He took that feeling of being "different" and channeled it into some of the most influential science fiction ever written.
If you want to dive deeper into Crichton's life beyond his stats, here is what you should do next:
- Read Travels: This is his best non-fiction work. He spends a lot of time talking about his internal struggles with his identity and his physical self.
- Watch his interview on The Dick Cavett Show: You can find clips on YouTube. Seeing him sit next to Cavett (who was about 5'7") is the only way to truly grasp how massive he was.
- Look up his early "John Lange" books: If you can find an old paperback of Odds On or Binary, you’re seeing the work of a medical student who was literally too tall for his own dorm room.
He may have been a giant in stature, but his intellectual legacy is what truly towers over the landscape of modern entertainment.