by: SHAUNAGH O'CONNOR
Michael Crawford's sweet-natured public image covers a life of the most peculiar difficulties, which he lays bare in his autobiography. SHAUNAGH O'CONNOR reports
The person in charge of Michael Crawford's publicity machine says she has never seen anything like it. She has been in publishing for 20 years and Crawford's new autobiography is blitzing the top 10 charts. The singing actor (or is that acting singer?) has been selling out literary lunches across the country, holding audiences spellbound in the palm of his hand
as he goes. The reason for his Australian tour de force is the release of his curiously named (but more on that later) autobiography -- Parcel Arrived Safely: Tied With String.
Known largely as either clowning Frank Spencer from TV's Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em or the disfigured Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera, Crawford thought it was about time he wrote the story of
his life. Before someone else did it, and probably less accurately than he would like, he says.
Crawford, a quietly spoken, charming, self-deprecating 57-year-old Englishman with a hearty laugh, tells all in his book. He began writing it almost 10 years ago while playing the Phantom in New York. Homesickness led him to put pen to paper, where he poured out personal details that he retained in the final version.
He says: "It was difficult to write when
I first wrote it, those 10 years ago when I had time to sit and take it all in, and when people say, 'Was it a cathartic experience?', I suppose it was in a way, 10 years ago. And now those same emotions are coming out because I keep talking about them so much and I keep talking about my mother and my grandmother."
He says there was never a fight over the long-winded title of the book: his publishers were glad to go with the phrase that has its source in a now much-publicised piece of family history.
Crawford, who was born Michael Dumble-Smith, says he was the product of an affair between his mother and a man he never met. He was brought up believing his father was, in fact, his mother's first husband, an air force pilot who died during World War II three years before Crawford was born.
Sent away from home to have her son, Crawford's mother relayed the news to her family via a coded telegram: "Parcel arrived safely" for a girl and "Parcel arrived safely tied with string" for a boy.
Crawford writes of growing up surrounded by his mother, grandmother and aunt until his mother remarried a man
who once sent him flying across a room when he hit the young Crawford. The child was trying to stop his step-father hitting
his mother.
He loved the female relatives in his life and says he is pleased they have become well-known to readers of his book. "Nan's become famous and she deserved to be."
Crawford discovered the true identity of his father when he was 16 or 17, he says, but never felt hostility towards his mother.
"I never stopped loving her, I was just confused by what she'd done. It wasn't clear. I often got the explanation of, 'Oh, you wouldn't understand when you are in certain class systems, there's nothing to talk about, you wouldn't understand' from my grandmother," he says.
For a brief moment, after he learned the truth, Crawford remembers registering his mother's deception, but never discussed the issue with her.
Crawford also writes of life as a mediocre school pupil and of when he discovered the things he was good at in life: singing and acting. And he tells of travelling through a career where one stage show led to another.
There are tales of being on the movie set of Hello Dolly, a film Crawford starred in with Barbra Streisand.
He tells of landing the role of circus star in the stage show Barnum, how Andrew Lloyd Webber cast him as the Phantom and of his years in the hit sitcom Some Mothers.
He writes of marriage and of divorce after admitting to his wife, Gabrielle, that he had been unfaithful to her.
He is now friends with Gabrielle, a reconciliation he wanted "not only because of the children, but because you've got to get back what you once had in some way if you can, and I think we did that".
The children he speaks of are adult daughters Emma and Lucy, and protecting them during the collapse of his marriage in the 1970s was a priority.
"When we went through the divorce -- and I don't know why because divorce can be a very selfish time -- I was always very aware never to involve them in the divorce, never to involve them in any argument because they were nothing to do with it, because they were innocent bystanders."
Although he writes of relationships with other women he is yet to approach marriage again.
"It's a point I've got to reach -- when I meet someone and I love someone enough to want to marry them. I really don't want to be on the move all the time -- I want them to be with me."
Crawford has a reputation for being down-to-earth and sweet-natured. He says he gets as excited as a child when something he does is a success, and knows he must practise his singing every day to keep his voice in tip-top shape.
"All that keeps you levelled out because if you don't work on that stuff, you'll be no good any more," he says. "You're only as good as your last concert, your last album, your last film, book, whatever you do."
And Crawford admits even he can turn off the charm and throw a tantrum.
"Oh, I've had tantrums. If I get tired and people aren't doing their job properly, you get a little short with people. I think you've got to, it's only human."