Michael Crawford Biography

However, it is perhaps the character of Frank Spencer in the cult TV classic ’Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em’, that marked the beginning of a big time career. The show proved a major worldwide success, and much of the praise was down to Crawford’s own interpretation of the character. The combination of effeminate gestures and madcap physical comedy made the show unique.

Comparisons to Buster Keaton were made as the daring stunts became more daring by the week, from dangling from a window to roller-skating underneath a moving articulated lorry!

In 1981, Crawford starred in the London run of the hit Broadway musical, ’Barnum’. Wowing critics and audiences alike, he received an Olivier Award. Following on from this, in 1986 he starred in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ’The Phantom of the Opera’. His performance again heralded rave reviews and the 1987 album from the show became an international best seller, with sales in excess in 12 million copies. Subsequent albums ’Songs from the Stage and Screen’, ‘Michael Crawford Performs Andrew Lloyd Webber’ and ‘A Touch of Music in the Night’ also proved big successes.

In 1986 Michael received an OBE from the Queen and a second Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical. 1995 saw Michael star in 'EFX' at MGM's Grand Theatre in Las Vegas – a show hailed as one of the most spectacular and ambitious shows ever produced on the American stage.

Having published his autobiography, ’Parcel Arrived Safely: Tied with String’, in 1999, he began a concert tour the following year that took in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

Michael returned to Broadway in the musical comedy ’Dance of the Vampires’ in 2002 and in 2004 he donned a fat-suit to play Count Fosco in the stage adaptation of Wilkie Collins’ ’The Woman In White', in London’s West End.