Michael Crawford did every Frank Spencer stunt himself and never used a double
The role of the accident-prone Frank Spencer in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em was offered to Ronnie Barker and Norman Wisdom before Michael Crawford took it. A devotee of Buster Keaton and Chaplin, he performed all the show's stunts himself, then learned tightrope walking at a New York circus school to play P. T. Barnum.
Born Michael Patrick Smith in 1942, he took the surname of his mother's first husband, a pilot killed in the Battle of Britain before Michael was conceived. As a boy soprano he sang in Benjamin Britten's Let's Make an Opera; Britten, impressed by an unsuccessful audition for another opera, hired him in 1955 for a London run. Performing in Britten's Noye's Fludde in 1958 convinced him to act, and he adopted the name Crawford to avoid being confused with a television newsman called Michael Ingrams, having been known until then as Michael Ingram.
He learned an American accent for Steve McQueen's The War Lover by listening for hours to the comedian Woody Woodbury, and the director Richard Lester cast him in The Knack in 1965 and in How I Won the War with John Lennon, during which Crawford lodged with Lennon in London. His Broadway debut in Black Comedy in 1967, full of pratfalls down stairs and into walls, caught Gene Kelly's eye and led to Hello, Dolly! alongside Barbra Streisand. Hard times followed: much of his fee was reportedly lost through his agent's investments, and he briefly worked as an office clerk at an electric company.
The stage farce No Sex Please, We're British revived him and led to Frank Spencer. Some Mothers ran in 1973 and 1975, stopping at its peak, and returned by popular demand in 1978. Meanwhile he trained seriously in singing and dance for the musical Billy, which ran for 904 West End performances. After Barnum he even earned a British gymnastics coaching qualification.
Typecasting had a cost: fans rejected him as a slob in the ITV sitcom Chalk and Cheese, and he left during its first series. His title role in The Phantom of the Opera brought both the Olivier and Tony awards for best actor in a musical. Since 1987 he has led the Sick Children's Trust.
Source: Michael Crawford
