The following year, with the Rooftop Singers, he recorded his most successful song, “Walk Right In,” which became a number one hit. In addition, Darling released a number of solo albums, including True Religion (1961), Train Time (1962), The Possible Dream (1975), Border Town at Midnight (1994), and Child, Child (2000).

Dahlbeck appeared in more than 50 movies from her debut in 1941 until her last role in 1970. She was also an accomplished stage actress during the same period, and she won the Eugene O’Neill Award in 1961. From the 1960s Dahlbeck devoted herself to writing, producing 10 novels as well as poetry, plays, and screenplays.

His U.S. Army service (1958-61) provided inspiration for his Vietnam War novel One to Count Cadence (1969). In his detective novels, down-and-out detective protagonists Milo Milodragovich and C.W. Sughrue live in the fictional mountain city of Meriwether, Mont. Both are also alcoholics and cocaine addicts; divorced war veterans who are fond of firearms, military tactics, and fistfights over small matters; loyal to moral codes at odds with those of conventional society; and prone to existential crises in the course of events. Other works include The Wrong Case (1975), The Last Good Kiss (1978), Dancing Bear (1983), The Final Country (2001), and The Right Madness (2005).

American author, physician, and television and motion picture producer-director (b. Oct. 23, 1942, Chicago, Ill.—d. Nov. 4, 2008, Los Angeles, Calif.), used his medical training and vivid imagination to pen wildly popular fictional tales that blended scientific and technological themes amid a fast-paced narrative; he was also the creator of the Emmy Award-winning television series ER (1994–2009). Among Crichton’s blockbuster thrillers were the novels .

The Andromeda Strain (1969; filmed 1971, TV miniseries 2008), which focused on an alien virus, and Jurassic Park (1990; cowriter of 1993 screenplay), the story of cloned dinosaurs run amok. Under the pseudonym John Lange, he penned eight thrillers, including Odds On (1966) and Binary (1972; teleplay Pursuit), and under the name Jeffrey Hudson, Crichton wrote the Edgar Awardwinning medical detective novel A Case of Need (1968; filmed as The Carey Treatment [1972]), which centred on the moral issues surrounding abortion. After earning his M.D. (1969), Crichton conducted research briefly at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, Calif., but on the merits of his success with The Andromeda Strain, he began writing full time.

After publishing the nonfiction Five Patients (1970), he returned to the techno-thriller genre with The Terminal Man (1972; filmed 1974), Sphere (1987; filmed 1998), The Lost World (1995; filmed 1997), a sequel to Jurassic Park, and Prey (2002). Crichton’s screenplays include The Great Train Robbery (1979), Congo (1995), and Rising Sun (1993)—all based on his books—and Coma (1978) and Twister (1996). Crichton’s novel State of Fear (2004), which debunked the theory of global warming, was widely panned by scientists.

The glamorous green-eyed redhead began acting in a Birmingham repertory company and made her film debut in 1944. Her screen appearances, which ranged from comedy to melodrama in addition to the horror classics, included a short-lived situation comedy, Dick and the Duchess (1957–58), and numerous television guest spots. After retiring from acting in the 1970s, Court became a successful sculptor.