MEET MISTER WIZARD

People with something to sell and a little cash for promotion sometimes engage a publicist to put out a flattering word. Such a paper is called a press release. Journalists consider it a breach of legitimacy to publish such a document verbatim; in most cases, the hyperbole would invite derision. A few days ago, however, a press release went around from Alfred A. Knopf, Michael Crichton's publisher, announcing the imminent release of 2 million copies of his new novel, The Lost World, the sequel to his 1990 blockbuster Jurassic Park. The remarkable thing is that if not for its length, this particular press release was eminently publishable, without risk of embarrassment. The reason is, it was almost arrogantly devoid of adjectives. It merely listed what Crichton has accomplished in his 52 years. They say it ain't bragging if you did it, and, as it happens, Michael Crichton's resume needs no more elevating than his shoes. He is 6 ft. 9 in.

That alpine height is usually the starting place in any attempt to sketch Crichton, for it is what flattens everyone upon first meeting him. "I found myself climbing up on things without even knowing it just to talk to him," says Kathleen Kennedy, who produced the movie Jurassic Park, as well as this summer's Congo, based on a 1980 Crichton novel. "It's a bit disconcerting when you realize you're tilting your head completely back just to get a glimpse of him."

His altitude defined him early, set him apart, just as his protean interests, multimedia successes and towering earnings would put him in rarefied air later on. A source of humiliation in cruel, skinny youth, his height was put in perspective later on, when he met, and was thrown into the shade by, 7-ft. 2-in. Wilt Chamberlain. "I had to admit," he said, "that part of me is proud of what makes me different."

Different, but deferential. He fiercely guards his private life and keeps his distance from the press. "I have a family; I have an existence; I have some privacy, and it's not going to be private if I let every reporter into my house," he says. If you caught him on television last week at the Emmy Awards, where one of his creations, the hit NBC medical series ER, was nominated for 23 awards (and took home eight), you saw him scrunched down in his chair, as a friendly giant will do in an auditorium seat--especially a giant writer seated in front of god filmmaker Steven Spielberg--5 ft. 10 in.--who directed Jurassic Park and will produce a movie version of The Lost World, and whose company, Amblin Entertainment, is responsible for putting ER on the air.