Mostly brought up by a single mother, Michael Crawford's first experience of
singing was as a church chorister. He made his first stage appearance playing
Sammy the Little Sweep in a school production of Benjamin Britten's Let's Make
An Opera, which resulted in an offer from the English Opera Group to appear in
another Britten opera, Noye's Fludde. This was when he changed his surname from
Smith to Crawford to avoid confusion with another performer of the same name
and, still in his teens, he made numerous other appearances in stage musicals.
Crawford made his movie debut playing...