Ian McKellen

Sir Ian Murray McKellen, KBE (born May 25, 1939) is a highly acclaimed British actor on both stage and screen, regarded by many as the greatest living British actor. His roles have spanned genres from serious Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular action movies. He is also well known as a campaigner for gay rights. For over a decade he has lived in a five-storey Victorian conversion in Narrow Street, Limehouse, London.

Youth and early career

McKellen was born in Wigan, Lancashire, shortly before the outbreak of World War II, and has indicated that this had some impact on him. In an interview with The Advocate magazine (December 25, 2001), when an interviewer remarked that he seemed quite calm in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attack, he said: "Well, darling, you forget — I slept under a steel plate until I was four years old." (Quotes in this article are from the Advocate interview unless otherwise noted.)

Related Topics:
Wigan - Lancashire - World War II - The Advocate - December 25 - 2001 - September 11 - Battle of Britain

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McKellen's father, Denis Murray McKellen, a civil engineer, was a lay preacher, and both of his grandfathers were preachers as well. 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 McKellen (née Sutcliffe) died; his father died when he was 24.

Related Topics:
Civil engineer - Lay - Christian

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When he came out of the closet to his stepmother, Gladys McKellen, who was a Friend (Quaker): "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 any more."

Related Topics:
Came out - Friend

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McKellen's acting career started while he was still a boy. He won a scholarship to St. Catharine's College, University of Cambridge, when he was 18, where he developed an intense crush on Derek Jacobi. He has characterised it as "a passion that was undeclared and unrequited." McKellen made his stage début in Coventry in 1961 and his West End début in 1964. He was already a major name in the theatre before establishing himself as a television and film actor.

Related Topics:
St. Catharine's College - University of Cambridge - Derek Jacobi - Coventry - 1961 - West End - 1964

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He and his first lover, Brian Taylor, began their relationship in 1964. It was a relationship that was to last for eight years, ending in 1972. They lived in London, where McKellen continued to pursue his career as an actor.

Related Topics:
1964 - 1972 - London

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