|
Michael Patrick Smith, (born 19 January 1942) known as Michael Crawford is an English actor, comedian and singer. He has received great critical acclaim and won numerous awards during his career, which covers radio, television, film, and stagework on both London's West End and on Broadway in New York City. He is best known for playing the hapless Frank Spencer in the popular 1970s British sitcom, ''Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em'' (which made him a household name), as well as for originating the title role in ''The Phantom of the Opera''. ==Early life== Michael Crawford was born in Salisbury, England as Michael Patrick Smith. He was brought up by his mother, Doris Agnes Mary Pike, and her parents, Montague Pike and his wife, Edith (née O'Keefe), in what Crawford described as a "close-knit Roman Catholic family". His maternal grandmother was born in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, and lived to be 99 years old.〔(Michael Crawford official website )〕 His mother's first husband, Arthur Dumbbell "Smudge" Smith (1918 – 6 September 1940),〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.bbm.org.uk/SmithAD.htm )〕 who was not his biological father, was killed, aged 22, in 1940 during the Battle of Britain, less than a year after they married.〔(Info re Arthur D. Smith at CWGC website )〕〔''Phantom: Michael Crawford Unmasked'', Anthony Hayward (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1991)〕 Sixteen months after Smith's death, Crawford was born, the result of a short-lived relationship, and given the surname of his mother's first husband. During his early years, he divided his time between the army camp in Wiltshire, where he and his mother lived during the war, and the Isle of Sheppey off the coast of Kent, where his mother had grown up and where Crawford would live with his mother and maternal grandparents. There he attended St Michael's, a Catholic school run by nuns, who Crawford later described as not being shy in their use of corporal punishment, in Bexleyheath. At the end of the war, his mother remarried, to a grocer, Lionel Dennis "Den" Ingram. The couple moved to London, where Crawford attended Oakfield Preparatory School, Dulwich, where he was known as Michael Ingram. His mother's second marriage, however, was stormy and abusive, according to Crawford,〔(Crawford website, ibid. )〕 and she died at age 44 from acute pancreatitis.〔(Crawford family info. and background at MCIFA website )〕 After his mother's death, young Michael was taken under the wing of an acting family, the Kendalls, led by music hall star Marie Kendall. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Michael Crawford」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|