Clifton Crawford

Clifton Crawford (2 April 1875 - 3 June 1920) was a Scottish-born American dancer, singer, musical theatre actor, pianist, lyricist, and composer. Born into a theatrical family in Edinburgh, he began his career on the stage as a child pianist, and then appeared opposite his parents in stage roles in first the United Kingdom and then in tours of South Africa and Australia. The family lived for a period in New Zealand and Australia where Crawford began working as a performer of Highland dance. As a young adult he worked in music halls in the UK and in vaudeville in the United States, but without much success. He became a golf instructor in Boston where he performed in amateur theatricals which brought him to the attention of lyricist Robert Barnet. Barnet reoriented his career to the Broadway stage beginning with the musical My Lady (1901).

Crawford was famous for writing the song "Nancy Brown" (a hit tune for Marie Cahill) and for his performances in the Broadway musicals Mother Goose (1903-1904), Three Twins (1908-1909), The Quaker Girl (1911), and Her Soldier Boy (1916-1917). He was also well known for his recitations of "Gunga Din" by Rudyard Kipling; a poem he first recited in Three Twins and later as a monologist. In addition to writing songs interpolated into several Broadway shows, he was also a co-creator of the musicals Seeing New York (1906), Captain Careless (1906), My Best Girl (1912), and I Love Lassie (1919). His final Broadway stage role was as the lead comic in Frank Mandel's play My Lady Friend (1919-1920) which was later adapted into the musical No, No, Nanette. He died from a fall at the age of 45 while in London on vacation in 1920.