Michael Crawford

Michael Crawford, born Michael Patrick Smith on 19 January 1942 in Salisbury, England, is an English actor, comedian, and singer who has worked across stage, film, and television. He adopted the professional surname Crawford to avoid confusion with a television newsman named Michael Ingrams who was registered with British Equity. His Broadway career spanned from 1967 to 2002, encompassing credits that include Black Comedy, White Liars, Dance of the Vampires, and The Phantom of the Opera.

Crawford was raised by his mother, Doris Agnes Mary Pike, and her parents, Montague and Edith Pike, in what he described as a close-knit Roman Catholic family. His mother's first husband, Arthur Dumbell Smith, was killed during the Battle of Britain on 6 September 1940 at the age of 22, and Crawford was born sixteen months later, the result of a separate relationship. His mother gave him her late husband's surname. During the war years, Crawford divided his time between an army camp in Wiltshire and the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. He attended St Michael's, a Catholic school in Bexleyheath, and later Oakfield Preparatory School in Dulwich, where he was known as Michael Ingram. After the Second World War, his mother remarried grocer Lionel Dennis Ingram, and the family relocated to Herne Hill in London.

His performing career began in school, when he played Sammy the Little Sweep in a production of Benjamin Britten's Let's Make an Opera, which transferred to Brixton Town Hall. Though he auditioned unsuccessfully for the role of Miles in Britten's The Turn of the Screw — a part that went to David Hemmings — his audition impressed Britten sufficiently that in 1955 Crawford was hired to alternate with Hemmings in a production of Let's Make an Opera at the Scala Theatre in London. That same year, credited as Michael Ingram and singing the role of Gay Brook, he participated in a recording of the opera conducted by the composer. In 1958, he was engaged by the English Opera Group to play Jaffet in Britten's Noye's Fludde, and he has cited that production as the point at which he recognized his commitment to acting as a profession.

During his early career, Crawford worked across a broad range of stage productions, including André Birabeau's Head of the Family, Neil Simon's Come Blow Your Horn, and Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, and Twelfth Night, among others. He also appeared in hundreds of BBC radio broadcasts and early television series, including Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School, Emergency - Ward 10, and Sir Francis Drake, a 26-part ITC adventure series starring Terence Morgan and Jean Kent, in which Crawford played the cabin boy John Drake. He made his film debut in 1958 with leading roles in two Children's Film Foundation productions, Blow Your Own Trumpet and Soapbox Derby.

At nineteen, Crawford was cast as Junior Sailen in The War Lover (1962), starring Steve McQueen, for which he spent considerable time studying the American comedian Woody Woodbury to develop an American accent. Director Richard Lester subsequently cast him in The Knack ...and How to Get It (1965), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and How I Won the War, the latter starring Roy Kinnear and John Lennon. Crawford also appeared in The Jokers (1967), directed by Michael Winner and co-starring Oliver Reed.

Crawford made his Broadway debut in 1967 in Peter Shaffer's Black Comedy alongside Lynn Redgrave, who was also making her Broadway debut. During the run of that production, director Gene Kelly noticed Crawford and called him to Hollywood to audition for the film adaptation of Hello, Dolly!, in which Crawford was ultimately cast as Cornelius Hackl, sharing top billing with Barbra Streisand and Walter Matthau. Despite being among the highest-grossing films of 1969, the production did not recoup its $25 million budget. It won three Academy Awards and received four additional nominations, including Best Picture.

Crawford's most celebrated stage role came with The Phantom of the Opera, in which he played the titular character. That performance earned him both the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical and, in 1988, the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. The same year, he also received the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Musical. His Broadway work additionally included Dance of the Vampires and White Liars.

Beyond his stage career, Crawford is widely recognized for his television role as the hapless Frank Spencer in the BBC sitcom Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. He has published an autobiography titled Parcel Arrived Safely: Tied With String, and since 1987 has served as the leader and public face of the Sick Children's Trust, a British social cause organization.