Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE (born 25 May 1939) is an English actor. The recipient of multiple Laurence Olivier Awards, a Tony Award, a Golden Globe Award, two Academy Award nominations, and five Emmy Award nominations, McKellen's work spans genres ranging from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction. His most notable film roles include Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies, Magneto in the X-Men films, and Sir Leigh Teabing in The Da Vinci Code.
[>>]Source: WikipediaSir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE (born 25 May 1939) is an English actor. The recipient of multiple Laurence Olivier Awards, a Tony Award, a Golden Globe Award, two Academy Award nominations, and five Emmy Award nominations, McKellen's work spans genres ranging from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction. His most notable film roles include Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies, Magneto in the X-Men films, and Sir Leigh Teabing in The Da Vinci Code.
McKellen was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1979, was knighted in 1991 for services to the performing arts, and was made a Companion of Honour for services to drama and to equality, in the 2008 New Year Honours.
Biography [edit]
Background [edit]
McKellen was born in Burnley, Lancashire,, but was raised in Wigan when his family moved there when he was just 4 months old. Some modern day reports suggest he was brought up in Bolton, yet he only lived there from the age of 13. Born shortly before the outbreak of World War II, the experience had some lasting impact on him. In response to an interview question when an interviewer remarked that he seemed quite calm in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks, he said: "Well, darling, you forget—I slept under a steel plate until I was four years old."
McKellen's father, Denis Murray McKellen, a civil engineer, was a lay preacher, and both of his grandfathers were preachers. His great-great-grandfather, James McKellen, was a "strict, evangelical Protestant minister" in Ballymena, County Antrim. At the time of Ian's birth, his parents already had a five-year-old daughter, Jean. His home environment was strongly Christian, but non-orthodox. "My upbringing was of low nonconformist Christians who felt that you led the Christian life in part by behaving in a Christian manner to everybody you met." When he was 12, his mother, Margery Lois (née Sutcliffe), died; his father died when he was 24. Of his coming out of the closet to his stepmother, Gladys McKellen, who was a member of the Religious Society of Friends, he said, "Not only was she not fazed, but as a member of a society which declared its indifference to people's sexuality years back, I think she was just glad for my sake that I wasn't lying anymore."
McKellen attended Bolton School (Boys' Division), of which he is still a supporter, attending regularly to talk to pupils. McKellen's acting career started at Bolton Little Theatre, of which he is now the patron. An early fascination with the theatre was encouraged by his parents, who took him on a family outing to Peter Pan at the Opera House in Manchester when he was three. When he was nine, his main Christmas present was a wood and bakelite, fold-away Victorian theatre from Pollocks Toy Theatres, with cardboard scenery and wires to push on the cut-outs of Cinderella and of Laurence Olivier's Hamlet.
His sister took him to his first Shakespeare play, Twelfth Night, by the amateurs of Wigan's Little Theatre, shortly followed by their Macbeth and Wigan High School for Girls' production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, with music by Mendelssohn, with the role of Bottom played by Jean McKellen, who continued to act, direct, and produce amateur theatre up to her death. He won a scholarship to St Catharine's College, Cambridge, when he was 18 years old. He has characterised it as "a passion that was undeclared and unrequited".
Personal life [edit]
McKellen and his first serious partner, Brian Taylor, a history teacher from Bolton, began their relationship in 1964. It lasted for eight years, ending in 1972. They lived in London, where McKellen continued to pursue his career as an actor. For over a decade, he has lived in a five-story Victorian conversion in Narrow Street, Limehouse. In 1978 he met his second partner, Sean Mathias, at the Edinburgh Festival. This relationship lasted until 1988. According to Mathias, the ten-year love affair was tempestuous, with conflicts over McKellen's success in acting versus Mathias' somewhat less-successful career. Mathias later directed McKellen in Waiting For Godot at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 2009. The pair entered into business partnership with Evgeny Lebedev, purchasing the lease on The Grapes public house in Narrow Street, close to McKellen's home.
A friend of actor Ian Charleson and an admirer of his work, McKellen contributed an entire chapter to the 1990 book, For Ian Charleson: A Tribute.
In the late 1980s, McKellen lost his appetite for meat except for fish, and so mostly excludes it from his diet. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2006.
[<<]This text is based on a article from the open encyclopedia Wikipedia and stands under GNU license for free documentation. On Wikipedia there is List of the authors Available. Image: Southbanksteve
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