Michael Crawford


Michael Patrick Smith, known professionally as Michael Crawford, is an English actor, comedian and singer.
Crawford is best known for playing the hapless Frank Spencer in the sitcom Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, Cornelius Hackl in the musical film Hello, Dolly!, and the titular character in the stage musical The Phantom of the Opera. His acclaimed performance in the last of these earned him both the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical and Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. He has received international critical acclaim and won numerous awards during his acting career, which has included many film and television performances as well as stage work on both London's West End and on New York's Broadway.
Crawford has also published the autobiography Parcel Arrived Safely: Tied With String. Since 1987, he has served as the leader and public face for the British social cause organisation the Sick Children's Trust.

Early life and education

Crawford was brought up by his mother, Doris Agnes Mary Pike, and her parents, Montague Pike and his wife, Edith, in what Crawford described as a "close-knit Roman Catholic family". His maternal grandmother was born in County Londonderry, Ireland, and lived to be 99 years old. His mother's first husband, Arthur Dumbell "Smudge" Smith, who was not his biological father, was killed, aged 22, on 6 September 1940 during the Battle of Britain, less than a year after they married. Sixteen months after Smith's death, Michael was born, the result of a short-lived relationship. His widowed mother gave her son her married surname, that of her late husband.
During his early years, Crawford divided his time between the army camp in Wiltshire, where he and his mother lived during the war, and the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. The isle was where his mother had grown up and where Crawford would later live with his mother and maternal grandparents. He attended St Michael's, a Catholic school in Bexleyheath which was run by nuns. Crawford later described them as not being shy in their use of corporal punishment.
At the end of the Second World War, his mother remarried, to grocer Lionel Dennis "Den" Ingram. The family moved to Herne Hill in London, where Crawford attended Oakfield Preparatory School, Dulwich. There he was known as Michael Ingram. According to him, his mother's second marriage was abusive.

Acting career

Career beginnings

Crawford made his first stage appearance in the role of Sammy the Little Sweep in his school production of Benjamin Britten's Let's Make an Opera, conducted by Donald Mitchell. It was transferred to Brixton Town Hall in London. He auditioned, unsuccessfully, for the role of Miles in Britten's The Turn of the Screw – the role was given to another boy soprano, David Hemmings. But Crawford's audition so impressed Britten that in 1955 he hired him to play Sammy, alternating with David Hemmings, in another production of Let's Make an Opera, this time at the Scala Theatre in London. Credited as Michael Ingram, singing the role of Gay Brook, he participated in a recording of the opera made that same year, conducted by the composer.
In 1958, Crawford was hired by the English Opera Group in the role of Jaffet in Noye's Fludde, Britten's setting of the Chester miracle play of the Genesis flood narrative. Crawford remembers that it was while working in this production that he realised he seriously wanted to become an actor. It was in between performances of Let's Make an Opera and Noye's Fludde that he was advised to change his name, "to avoid confusion with a television newsman called Michael Ingram who was registered with British Equity". He adopted Crawford.
Crawford performed in a wide repertoire. Among his stage work, he performed in André Birabeau's French comedy Head of the Family , Neil Simon's Come Blow Your Horn, Bernard Kops's Change for the Angel, Francis Swann's Out of the Frying Pan, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, and Twelfth Night, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, The Striplings, The Move After Checkmate and others.
In the same period, he appeared in hundreds of BBC radio broadcasts and early television series, such as Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School, Emergency - Ward 10, Probation Officer, and Two Living, One Dead. He appeared as the cabin boy John Drake in the television series Sir Francis Drake, a 26-part adventure series made by ITC starring Terence Morgan and Jean Kent. He made his film debut in 1958 with leading roles in two children's films, Blow Your Own Trumpet and Soapbox Derby, for the Children's Film Foundation in Britain.
In 1961, Crawford appeared in an episode of One Step Beyond called "The Villa", in which he played a character experimenting with strobe lights. Crawford appears in the only surviving episode of the 1960 British crime series Police Surgeon alongside Ian Hendry. This series would spawn the much better-known The Avengers.

Early adult career

At age nineteen, Crawford was approached to play an American, Junior Sailen, in the film The War Lover, which starred Steve McQueen. To prepare for the role, he would spend hours listening to Woody Woodbury, a famous American comedian of the time, to try to perfect an American accent. After The War Lover, Crawford briefly returned to the stage. After playing the lead role in the 1963 British film Two Left Feet, he was offered a role in the British television series, Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life, as the Mod-style, tough-talking, motor-scooter riding Byron.
It was this character that attracted film director Richard Lester to hire him for the role of Colin in The Knack...and How to Get It in 1965. The film was a huge success in the UK.
Lester also cast Crawford in the film adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and in How I Won the War, starring Roy Kinnear and John Lennon.. Crawford starred in The Jokers with Oliver Reed in 1967.

Broadway debut

In 1967, Crawford made his Broadway début in Peter Shaffer's Black Comedy with Lynn Redgrave. He demonstrated his aptitude and daring for extreme physical comedy, such as walking into walls and falling down staircases.
While working in the show, he was noticed by Gene Kelly, who called him to Hollywood to audition for a part in the film adaptation of the musical Hello, Dolly!. Crawford was cast and shared top billing with Barbra Streisand and Walter Matthau. Despite being one of the highest-grossing works of 1969, the film failed to recoup its $25 million budget at the box office. It won three Academy Awards, was nominated for a further four, and is now considered to be one of the greatest musical films ever.
Crawford's later films fared less successfully, although Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, in which he played the White Rabbit, enjoyed moderate success in the UK. After performing in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and with offers of work greatly reduced and much of his salary from Hello, Dolly! lost, reportedly due to underhanded investments by his agent, Crawford faced a brief period of unemployment.
During this time, he helped his wife stuff cushions and took a job as an office clerk in an electric company. But at this difficult time, his marriage fell apart and divorce followed in 1975.

''Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em''

Crawford's acting career took off again after he appeared on the London stage in the farce No Sex Please, We're British, in which he played the part of frantic chief cashier Brian Runnicles. This performance led to an invitation to star in a BBC television comedy series about a childlike and eternally haphazard man who causes disaster everywhere he goes. Crawford was not the first choice for the role of Frank Spencer in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. Originally, the show was offered to Ronnie Barker, who turned it down, and then to Norman Wisdom, who did likewise, but Crawford took on the challenge. He adopted a characterisation similar to the one he employed for Brian Runnicles. Cast alongside him was Michele Dotrice in the role of Frank's long-suffering wife, Betty.
Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em soon became one of the BBC's most popular television series. Initially, only two series were produced, in 1973 and 1975, as the show's creators felt it should stop at its peak, but popular demand saw the programme revived for a final series in 1978. Its immense popularity was due in part to its extensive use of physical comedy. Crawford said he had always been a fan of comedians such as Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, and Charlie Chaplin, as well as the sight gags employed in the days of silent film. He saw Some Mothers as the ideal opportunity to practice such humour. He performed his own stunts during the show's run and never used a double.

1970s

While he was playing in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, Crawford was approached to star in the musical Billy, which opened in 1974 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London. This was his first leading man role on the West End stage; it helped to firmly establish his career as both a singer and showman. The part was demanding, requiring proficiency in both song and dance. In preparation for the role, Crawford began taking both arts more seriously, studying singing under the tutelage of vocal coach Ian Adam and spending hours perfecting his dancing with choreographer Onna White.
Billy gave the many fans of Crawford's portrayal of Frank Spencer an opportunity to see him in a broadly similar role on the stage, and was a considerable hit. After the closing of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, Crawford continued to perform in plays and musicals, starring in Flowers for Algernon in the role of Charley Gordon, based on the book of the same title. He pursued another role on an ITV sitcom, Chalk and Cheese, as the slovenly, uncouth Dave Finn. The show did not go over well with his fans: the popularity of Crawford's portrayal of Frank Spencer, and the similar Billy Fisher character, had left him somewhat typecast, to the extent that they could not accept his very different role as Dave Finn. Crawford abandoned the show during its first series and returned to theatre work.