After Dinner Speakers: Michael Crawford, Holly Valance, Gil Scott Heron

b. Michael Patrick Dumble-Smith, 19 January 1942, Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. An actor and singer who came to world-wide fame when he played the leading role in Andrew Lloyd Webber's hit musical, The Phantom Of The Opera, in 1986. His father was a fighter pilot during World War II and died six months before his son was born. Crawford sang in the school choir and later toured in the original productions of Benjamin Britten's Let's Make An Opera and Noyes Fluddle. While still a teenager he changed his name to Crawford (after seeing it on a biscuit box), and worked extensively in radio, and in films and television programmes for children. In the 60s he appeared in the late-night satirical BBC television series Not So Much A Programme, More A Way Of Life, and created the character of Byron, a "rocker" who was thought to be typical of the swinging 60s. He also made a number of films including The War Lover, starring Steve McQueen, Two Left Feet, Richard Lester's The Knack, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, and How I Won The War. His London stage debut came in Neil Simon's Come Blow Your Horn (1962), which was followed by the off-beat comedy-drama The Anniversary. In 1967 he moved to New York and appeared in a pair of short plays written by Peter Shaffer entitled White Lies and Black Comedy. While in the latter piece, he was spotted by film director Gene Kelly who cast him as Cornelius Hackl in the screen version of Hello, Dolly! starring Barbra Streisand. It gained him an international following, but subsequent films such as The Games, Hello, Goodbye, and Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, were not so satisfying. In 1971 Crawford returned to the London stage in the long-running farce No Sex, Please - We're British, and, soon afterwards, was voted Funniest Man On Television for his performance as the accident-prone Frank Spencer in the situation comedy, Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. In 1974 he starred in Billy, his first stage musical, and was voted Show Business Personality of the Year and received the Silver Heart Award from the Variety Club of Great Britain. In 1976 he appeared in the American two-hander comedy Same Time, Next Year, and, two years later, portrayed a mentally handicapped man who volunteers to be a guinea-pig for a medical experiment in Flowers For Algernon. After a further television series, Chalk And Cheese, Crawford was back on the London stage for the musical Barnum, in which he played the celebrated American showman P.T. Barnum, a role he prepared for by attending the New York Circus School for two months in order to acquire the necessary specialist skills. The show was a smash-hit and Crawford won a Laurence Olivier Award for his outstanding, charismatic performance. He stayed with Barnum in various places for several years, and, when he returned with it to London at the Victoria Palace in 1985, it was estimated that more than 2.5 million people had seen the production. Around this time, Andrew Lloyd Webber heard him at singing practice and cast him in the leading role - opposite Sarah Brightman - in The Phantom Of The Opera. Following the show's opening night in October 1986 one critic was moved to write of him: "It is surely one of the great performances, not only in a musical but on any stage in any year.' Two years later Broadway audiences felt the same, and he won the Tony Award for best actor in a musical. The show gave Crawford's singing career a tremendous boost (he had already made the UK Top 10 in January 1987 with one of the Phantom"s hit songs, "The Music Of The Night"), and he embarked on extensive tours of several countries, including America, Australia, and the UK, with a concert production entitled The Music Of Andrew Lloyd Webber, supported by a 37-piece orchestra, soloists, and a back-up chorus. Recognition at home, where he is still unable to shake off the "Frank Spencer" image, came in 1987 when he was awarded the OBE. In America he is billed as "the matinee idol of the decade", and must have realised that he had hit the big-time when invited to duet with Barbra Streisand on "The Music Of The Night" for her 1993 Back To Broadway album. The track was also included on his own A Touch Of Music In The Night, which proved to be an intriguing mixture of standards ("Stormy Weather"), pop songs ("The Power Of Love"), and show tunes. In April 1995, Crawford opened at the MGM Grand Hotel Las Vegas in EFX, a "gigantic $41 million musical spectacle" in which he played five roles: The EFX Master, Merlin, Houdini, H.G. Wells and Barnum (again). A serious hip injury, sustained in the early days of his involvement with the show, forced Crawford to withdraw from EFX in August 1996. He was replaced by American actor and singer David Cassidy, and the production was revamped accordingly. After undergoing a hip replacement operation, Crawford returned to the concert circuit, touring the USA, Australia, and New Zealand in 1998.