Of cancer. He was 66.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/05/print/main4575403.shtml
I always wondered why his didn't continue directing movies -- he only made a couple, but they were both good: Westworld and Great Train Robbery both in the '70s. He became something of an obnoxious neocon in recent years -- he was one of those "global warming isn't real" types.
Just re-watched
GTR a couple months ago, still a pretty darn good flick, and don't forget he created
ER. Also he was one of the tallest celebs ever - outside the NBA - at 6' 9".
But he turned into more than just your garden variety crank. Indeed, I would almost give him an RIH instead of an RIP. I read many of his novels up to and including
State Of Fear, but after that one, in which he not only (fictionally) says that global warming is a figment of the imagination, but goes so far as to create, straight out of James Bond, a vast global organization of high tech terrorists (with high tech gadgetry way beyond anything anyone else has), who are creating eco-disasters because - get this - they are a bunch of ultra green types, and if they don't create the eco-disasters (incl. triggering a tsunami capable of hitting the West Coast) they might all lose their funding. Say what!?
One of the best things about the Dems regaining control of the Senate in '06 was that it removed James Inhofe (R - OK, just got re-elected last night) from the chair of the Senate committee on the environment, in which position he was a fierce opponent of federal recognition of the climate crisis. He infamously only called one 'expert' to testify about global warming, and it was Crichton.
