Michael Crawford

Long recognized by stagegoers chiefly for embodying the lead in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera, Michael Crawford had in reality already established himself as a fixture of British theater and cinema nearly twenty years earlier. He entered the world in Wiltshire, England, during 1942, sang in his school choir as a boy, and, while still in his teens, exchanged the surname Dumble-Smith for the more striking Crawford before launching a career that encompassed radio, television, and motion pictures. His initial London stage appearance came in the early 1960s, after which he joined the BBC series Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life as a regular; film roles followed in The War Lover, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and the starring part in How I Won the War alongside John Lennon.

Relocating to New York in 1967, Crawford took parts in several modest productions until Gene Kelly cast him in the screen adaptation of Hello, Dolly! opposite Barbra Streisand. Subsequent movies met with limited success, prompting his return to England in the early 1970s, where an award-winning performance in the sitcom Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em further raised his profile. Throughout the remainder of the decade he moved between television work and acclaimed theatrical engagements, yet his decisive breakthrough arrived with the title role in the musical Barnum, a production that collected multiple honors and enjoyed widespread popularity. Early-1980s touring of that show ultimately convinced Andrew Lloyd Webber to select Crawford to appear opposite Sarah Brightman when The Phantom of the Opera opened in 1986. The role brought glowing reviews, a Tony Award, and the single “The Music of the Night,” which climbed into the British Top Ten.

Atlantic Records signed him the same year, and he issued Songs from the Stage & Screen with the London Symphony Orchestra. After completing Phantom tours that spanned Great Britain, North America, and Australia, he recorded the album With Love and later mounted a concert presentation titled The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, which became his third full-length release. A Touch of Music in the Night appeared in 1993. Two years afterward Crawford originated EFX, the $40 million spectacle staged at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, in which he assumed five separate characters. Spring 1998 saw the release of On Eagle’s Wings, a program of spiritual material; Live in Concert followed later that year, and In the Moon of Wintertime: Christmas with Michael Crawford reached stores in 1999.