Star of ‘Phantom’ Gives Gene Kelly Full Credit

“Phantom of the Opera” star and Tony Award winner Michael Crawford says he owes his success to Gene Kelly, who once scolded him out for not being expressive enough.

“Without his help I doubt whether I’d have ever reached this point,” Crawford said of his mentor in an interview.

The two met during the making of the movie version of “Hello, Dolly!” in 1968, when the veteran song-and-dance man was directing Crawford, then 26, in one of his first starring roles.

The British actor, who has gone on to become an international star, said Kelly took him under his wing and changed his life.

“Just his kindness and his professionalism and his driving me to do things that I never thought I could do,” Crawford said in trying to explain Kelly’s influence on him.

Crawford, relaxing in his dressing room at the Ahmanson Theater, the Los Angeles home of “Phantom,” also said Kelly taught him to be “brave.”

“I’m a very inward-type actor and I’m not expansive in that way that you’ll here vast sounds coming out of the mouth that you would hear from Richard Burton, for instance,” he said, drawing out the word vast.

Crawford said Kelly came to the opening night of the Los Angeles run of Phantom.

“He was my most important guest. He just said how proud he was of me,” Crawford remembered.

Although he has starred in a long-running hit television series in Britain, “Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em,” and has made a number of movies, the theater is Crawford’s first love.

“I love the theater,” he said. “I grew up with the theater and I love it. It’s something special about playing to a live audience.”