This image of Crewdson seems to be inconsistent with what I was told about him - in that he was always portrayed as 'fearless'
I've never ever heard of John being described that way.
I'd quite certainly never fly with any pilot who was/is fearless, not knowingly anyway.
This wonderful forum has some quite extraordinary pilots, some of whom I'm in awe. Kenyon and Farley are two such examples.
I doubt very much that either of those two examples could reasonably be described as fearless. Fearlessness is quite incompatible with safe and competent flying, in my opinion.
John Crewdson was an extraordinarily precise pilot. He did a lot of show flying which was right on the edge, but I would not say that he was fearless.
After his Gibraltar whoopsie, in which he crashed a plankwing into the harbour thru a fuel tank selection whoopsie, he lost much of his spleen in life-saving surgery. For a spirited drinker such as John, that would have been a wakeup call if he'd been a reckless kinda guy.
He continued to fly with great spirit. I mean that in the best possible way!