McKellen was born on 25 May 1939 in Burnley, Lancashire,[9][10] the son of Margery Lois (née Sutcliffe) and Denis Murray McKellen. He was their second child, with a sister, Jean, five years his senior.[11] Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, his family moved to Wigan. They lived there until Ian was twelve years old, before relocating to Bolton in 1951 after his father had been promoted.[11][12] The experience of living through the war as a young child had a lasting impact on him, and he later said that "only after peace resumed... did I realise that war wasn't normal".[12] When an interviewer remarked that he seemed quite calm in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks, McKellen said: "Well, darling, you forget—I slept under a steel plate until I was four years old".[13]
McKellen's father was a civil engineer[14] and lay preacher, and was of Protestant Irish and Scottish descent.[15] Both of McKellen's grandfathers were preachers, and his great-great-grandfather, James McKellen, was a "strict, evangelical Protestant minister" in Ballymena, County Antrim.[16] 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".[17] When he was 12, his mother died of breast cancer; his father died when he was 25. After his coming out as gay to his stepmother, Gladys McKellen, who was a Quaker, 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 any more".[18] His great-great-grandfather Robert J. Lowes was an activist and campaigner in the ultimately successful campaign for a Saturday half-holiday in Manchester, the forerunner to the modern five-day work week, thus making Lowes a "grandfather of the modern weekend".[19]
McKellen attended Bolton School (Boys' Division),[20] 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.[21] 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.[11] When he was nine, his main Christmas present was a fold-away wood and bakelite Victorian theatre from Pollocks Toy Theatres, with cardboard scenery and wires to push on the cut-outs of Cinderella and of Laurence Olivier's reenactment of Shakespeare's "Hamlet".[11]
His sister took him to his first Shakespeare play, Twelfth Night,[22] 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 until her death.[23]
In 1958, McKellen, at the age of 18, won a scholarship to St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he read English literature.[24] He has since been made an Honorary Fellow of the college. While at Cambridge, McKellen was a member of the Marlowe Society, where he appeared in 23 plays over the course of 3 years. At that young age he was already giving performances that have since become legendary such as his Justice Shallow in Henry IV alongside Trevor Nunn and Derek Jacobi (March 1959), Cymbeline (as Posthumus, opposite Margaret Drabble as Imogen) and Doctor Faustus.[25][26][27] During this period McKellen had already been directed by Peter Hall, John Barton and Dadie Rylands, all of whom would have a significant impact on McKellen's future career.[28]
Career
1965–1985: National Theatre acclaim
McKellen (Antonio Salieri) alongside Jane Seymour (Constanze Mozart) in Amadeus, c. 1981
One of McKellen's first major roles on television was as the title character in the BBC's 1966 adaptation of David Copperfield, which achieved 12 million viewers on its initial airings. After some rebroadcasting in the late 60s, the master videotapes for the serial were wiped, and only four scattered episodes (3, 8, 9 and 11) survive as telerecordings, three of which feature McKellen as adult David. McKellen had taken film roles throughout his career—beginning in 1969 with his role of George Matthews in A Touch of Love, and his first leading role was in 1980 as D. H. Lawrence in Priest of Love,[30] but it was not until the 1990s that he became more widely recognised in this medium after several roles in blockbuster Hollywood films.[24] In 1969, McKellen starred in three films, Michael Hayes's The Promise, Clive Donner's epic film Alfred the Great, and Waris Hussein's A Touch of Love (1969).
In 1986, he returned to Broadway in the revival of Anton Chekhov's first play Wild Honey alongside Kim Cattrall and Kate Burton. The play concerned a local Russian schoolteacher who struggles to remain faithful to his wife, despite the attention of three other women. McKellen received mixed reviews from critics in particular Frank Rich of The New York Times who praised him for his "bravura and athletically graceful technique that provides everything except, perhaps, the thing that matters most—sustained laughter". He later wrote, "Mr. McKellen finds himself in the peculiar predicament of the star who strains to carry a frail supporting cast".[36] In 1989 he played Iago in production of Othello by the Royal Shakespeare Company.[37] McKellen starred in the British drama Scandal (1989) a fictionalised account of the Profumo affair that rocked the government of British prime minister Harold Macmillan. McKellen portrayed John Profumo. The film starred Joanne Whalley, and John Hurt. The film premiered at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival and competed for the Palme d'Or. When his friend and colleague, Patrick Stewart, decided to accept the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the American television series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, McKellen strongly advised him not to throw away his respected theatrical career to work in television. However, McKellen later conceded that Stewart had been prudent in accepting the role, which made him a global star and later followed his example such as co-starring with Stewart in the X-Mensuperhero film series.[38]
From 1990 to 1992, he acted in a world tour of a lauded revival of Richard III, playing the title character. The production played at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for two weeks before continuing its tour where Frank Rich of New York Times was able to review it. In his piece, he praised McKellen's performance writing, "Mr McKellen's highly sophisticated sense of theatre and fun drives him to reveal the secrets of how he pulls his victims' strings whether he is addressing the audience in a soliloquy or not".[39] For his performance he received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor.[40]
In 1995, McKellen made his screenwriting debut with Richard III, an ambitious adaptation of William Shakespeare's play of the same name, directed by Richard Loncraine.[41][42] The film reimagines the play's story and characters to a setting based on 1930s Britain, with Richard depicted as a fascist plotting to usurp the throne. McKellen stars in the title role alongside an ensemble cast including Annette Bening, Robert Downey Jr., Jim Broadbent, Kristen Scott Thomas, Nigel Hawthorne and Dame Maggie Smith. As executive producer he returned his £50,000 fee to complete the filming of the final battle.[43] In his review of the film, The Washington Post film critic Hal Hinson called McKellen's performance a "lethally flamboyant incarnation" and said his "florid mastery... dominates everything".[44] Film critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times praised McKellen's adaptation and his performance in his four star review writing, "McKellen has a deep sympathy for the playwright... Here he brings to Shakespeare's most tortured villain a malevolence we are moved to pity. No man should be so evil, and know it. Hitler and others were more evil, but denied out to themselves. There is no escape for Richard. He is one of the first self-aware characters in the theatre, and for that distinction he must pay the price".[45] His performance in the title role garnered BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor and won the European Film Award for Best Actor. His screenplay was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. That same year, he appeared in the historical drama Restoration (1995) also starring Downey Jr., as well as Meg Ryan, Hugh Grant, and David Thewlis. He also appeared in the British romantic comedy Jack and Sarah (1995) starring Richard E. Grant, Samantha Mathis, and Judi Dench.
McKellen returned to the Broadway stage in 2001 in an August Strindberg play The Dance of Death alongside Helen Mirren and David Strathairn at the Broadhurst Theatre. The New York Times Theatre critic Ben Brantley praised McKellen's performance writing, "[McKellen] returns to Broadway to serve up an Elysian concoction we get to sample too little these days: a mixture of heroic stage presence, actorly intelligence, and rarefied theatrical technique".[53] McKellen toured with the production at the Lyric Theatre in London's West End and to the Sydney Art's Festival in Australia. On 16 March 2002, he hosted Saturday Night Live. In 2003, McKellen made a guest appearance as himself on the American cartoon show The Simpsons in a special British-themed episode entitled "The Regina Monologues", along with the then UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and author J. K. Rowling. In April and May 2005, he played the role of Mel Hutchwright in Granada Television's long-running British soap opera, Coronation Street, fulfilling a lifelong ambition, where in 2015 he was gifted a cobble from the soap's exterior set for his seventy-sixth birthday.[54] He narrated Richard Bell's film Eighteen as a grandfather who leaves his World War II memoirs on audio-cassette for his teenage grandson.
McKellen has appeared in limited release films, such as Emile (which was shot in three weeks following the X2 shoot),[55]Neverwas and Asylum. In 2006, he appeared as Sir Leigh Teabing in The Da Vinci Code opposite Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon. During a 17 May 2006 interview on The Today Show with the Da Vinci Code cast and director Ron Howard, Matt Lauer posed a question to the group about how they would have felt if the film had borne a prominent disclaimer that it is a work of fiction, as some religious groups wanted.[56] McKellen responded, "I've often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying 'This is fiction'. I mean, walking on water? It takes... an act of faith. And I have faith in this movie—not that it's true, not that it's factual, but that it's a jolly good story". He continued, "And I think audiences are clever enough and bright enough to separate out fact and fiction, and discuss the thing when they've seen it".[56]
McKellen reprised the role of Gandalf on screen in Peter Jackson's three-part film adaptation of The Hobbit starting with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), followed by The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013), and finally The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014).[63] Despite the series receiving mixed reviews, it emerged as a financial success. McKellen also reprised his role as Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto in James Mangold's The Wolverine (2013), and Singer's X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). In November 2013, McKellen appeared in the Doctor Who 50th anniversary comedy homage The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot.[64] From 2013 to 2016, McKellen co-starred in the ITV sitcom Vicious as Freddie Thornhill, alongside Derek Jacobi. The series revolves around an elderly gay couple who have been together for 50 years.[65][66] The show's original title was "Vicious Old Queens". There are ongoing jokes about McKellen's career as a relatively unsuccessful character actor who owns a tux because he stole it after doing a guest spot on "Downton Abbey" and that he holds the title of "10th Most Popular 'Doctor Who' Villain". Liz Shannon Miller of IndieWire noted while the concept seemed, "weird as hell", that "Once you come to accept McKellen and Jacobi in a multi-camera format, there is a lot to respect about their performances; specifically, the way that those decades of classical training adapt themselves to the sitcom world. Much has been written before about how the tradition of the multi-cam, filmed in front of a studio audience, relates to theatre, and McKellen and Jacobi know how to play to a live crowd".[67]
In 2015, McKellen reunited with director Bill Condon playing an elderly Sherlock Holmes in the mystery film Mr. Holmes alongside Laura Linney. In the film based on the novel A Slight Trick of the Mind (2005), Holmes now 93, struggles to recall the details of his final case because his mind is slowly deteriorating. The film premiered at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival with McKellen receiving acclaim for his performance. Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers praised his performance writing, "Don't think you can take another Hollywood version of Sherlock Holmes? Snap out of it. Apologies to Robert Downey Jr. and Benedict Cumberbatch, but what Ian McKellen does with Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective in Mr Holmes is nothing short of magnificent... Director Bill Condon, who teamed superbly with McKellen on the Oscar-winning Gods and Monsters, brings us a riveting character study of a lion not going gentle into winter".[68] In October 2015, McKellen appeared as Norman to Anthony Hopkins's Sir in a BBC Two production of Ronald Harwood's The Dresser, alongside Edward Fox, Vanessa Kirby, and Emily Watson.[69] Television critic Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter praised the film and the central performances writing, "there's no escaping that Hopkins and McKellen are the central figures here, giving wonderfully nuanced performances, onscreen together for their first time in their acclaimed careers".[70] For his performance McKellen received a British Academy Television Award nomination for his performance.
McKellen in 2019
In 2017, McKellen portrayed in a supporting role as Cogsworth (originally voiced by David Ogden Stiers in the 1991 animated film) in the live-action adaptation of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, directed by Bill Condon (which marked the third collaboration between Condon and McKellen, after Gods and Monsters and Mr. Holmes) and co-starred alongside Emma Watson and Dan Stevens.[71] The film was released to positive reviews and grossed $1.2billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing live-action musical film, the second highest-grossing film of 2017, and the 17th highest-grossing film of all time.[72][73][74] In 2017, McKellen appeared in the documentary McKellen: Playing the Part, directed by director Joe Stephenson. The documentary explores McKellen's life and career as an actor.
McKellen and his first partner, Brian Taylor, a history teacher from Bolton, began their relationship in 1964.[94] Their relationship lasted for eight years, ending in 1972.[95] They lived in Earls Terrace, Kensington, London, where McKellen continued to pursue his career as an actor.[95] In 1978, he met his second partner, Sean Mathias, at the Edinburgh Festival. This relationship lasted until 1988, and according to Mathias, it was tempestuous, with conflicts over McKellen's success in acting versus Mathias's somewhat less-successful career. The two remained friends, with Mathias later directing McKellen in Waiting for Godot at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 2009. The pair entered into a business partnership with Evgeny Lebedev, purchasing the lease of The Grapes public house in Narrow Street.[96] As of 2005, McKellen had been living in Narrow Street, Limehouse, for more than 25 years, more than a decade of which had been spent in a five-storey Victorian conversion.[97]
McKellen was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2006.[103] In 2012, he stated on his blog that "There is no cause for alarm. I am examined regularly and the cancer is contained. I've not needed any treatment".[104]
While McKellen had made his sexual orientation known to fellow actors early on in his stage career, it was not until 1988 that he came out to the general public while appearing on the BBC Radio programme Third Ear hosted by conservative journalist Peregrine Worsthorne.[110] The context that prompted McKellen's decision, overriding any concerns about a possible negative effect on his career, was that the controversial Section 28 of the Local Government Bill, known simply as Section 28, was then under consideration in the British Parliament.[24] Section 28 proposed prohibiting local authorities from promoting homosexuality "... as a kind of pretended family relationship".[111][24][112] McKellen has stated that he was influenced in his decision by the advice and support of his friends, among them noted gay author Armistead Maupin.[24] In a 1998 interview that discusses the 29th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, McKellen commented,
I have many regrets about not having come out earlier, but one of them might be that I didn't engage myself in the politicking.[113]
He has said of this period:
My own participating in that campaign was a focus for people [to] take comfort that if Ian McKellen was on board for this, perhaps it would be all right for other people to be as well, gay and straight.[17]
Section 28 was, however, enacted and remained on the statute books until it was repealed in 2000 in Scotland and 2003 in England and Wales. Section 28 never applied in Northern Ireland.
In 2003, during an appearance on Have I Got News For You, McKellen claimed when he visited Michael Howard, then Environment Secretary (responsible for local government), in 1988 to lobby against Section 28, Howard refused to change his position but did ask him to leave an autograph for his children. McKellen agreed, but wrote, "Fuck off, I'm gay".[114][115] McKellen described Howard's junior ministers, Conservatives David Wilshire and Jill Knight, who were the architects of Section 28, as the 'ugly sisters' of a political pantomime.[116]
McKellen has continued to be very active in LGBT rights efforts. In a statement on his website regarding his activism, the actor commented:
I have been reluctant to lobby on other issues I most care about—nuclear weapons (against), religion (atheist), capital punishment (anti), AIDS (fund-raiser) because I never want to be forever spouting, diluting the impact of addressing my most urgent concern; legal and social equality for gay people worldwide.[117]
In 1994, at the closing ceremony of the Gay Games, he briefly took the stage to address the crowd, saying, "I'm Sir Ian McKellen, but you can call me Serena": This nickname, given to him by Stephen Fry, had been circulating within the gay community since McKellen's knighthood was conferred.[17] In 2002, he was the Celebrity Grand Marshal of the San Francisco Pride Parade[119] and he attended the Academy Awards with his then-boyfriend, New Zealander Nick Cuthell. In 2006, McKellen spoke at the pre-launch of the 2007 LGBT History Month in the UK, lending his support to the organisation and its founder, Sue Sanders.[7] In 2007, he became a patron of The Albert Kennedy Trust, an organisation that provides support to young, homeless and troubled LGBT people.[6]
In 2006, he became a patron of Oxford Pride, stating:
I send my love to all members of Oxford Pride, their sponsors and supporters, of which I am proud to be one... Onlookers can be impressed by our confidence and determination to be ourselves and gay people, of whatever age, can be comforted by the occasion to take the first steps towards coming out and leaving the closet forever behind.[120]
McKellen has taken his activism internationally, and caused a major stir in Singapore, where he was invited to do an interview on a morning show and shocked the interviewer by asking if they could recommend him a gay bar; the programme immediately ended.[121] In December 2008, he was named in Out's annual Out 100 list.[122]
In 2010, McKellen extended his support for Liverpool's Homotopia festival in which a group of gay and lesbian Merseyside teenagers helped to produce an anti-homophobia campaign pack for schools and youth centres across the city.[123] In May 2011, he called Sergey Sobyanin, Moscow's mayor, a "coward" for refusing to allow gay parades in the city.[124]
In 2014, he was named in the top 10 on the World Pride Power list.[125]
Charity work
In April 2010, along with actors Brian Cox and Eleanor Bron, McKellen appeared in a series of TV advertisements to support Age UK, the charity recently formed from the merger of Age Concern and Help the Aged. All three actors gave their time free of charge.[126]
A cricket fan since childhood, McKellen umpired in March 2011 for a charity cricket match in New Zealand to support earthquake victims of the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake.[127][128]
McKellen is an honorary board member for the New York City- and Washington, D.C.–based organisation Only Make Believe.[129] Only Make Believe creates and performs interactive plays in children's hospitals and care facilities. He was honoured by the organisation in 2012[130] and hosted their annual Make Believe on Broadway Gala in November 2013.[131] He garnered publicity for the organisation by stripping down to his Lord of the Rings underwear on stage.
McKellen also has a history of supporting individual theatres. While in New Zealand filming The Hobbit in 2012, he announced a special New Zealand tour "Shakespeare, Tolkien and You!", with proceeds going to help save the Isaac Theatre Royal, which suffered extensive damage during the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. McKellen said he opted to help save the building as it was the last theatre he played in New Zealand (Waiting for Godot in 2010) and the locals' love for it made it a place worth supporting.[132] In July 2017, he performed a new one-man show for a week at Park Theatre (London), donating the proceeds to the theatre.[133]
Together with a number of his Lord of the Rings co-stars (plus writer Philippa Boyens and director Peter Jackson), on 1 June 2020 McKellen joined Josh Gad's YouTube series Reunited Apart which reunites the cast of popular movies through video-conferencing, and promotes donations to non-profit charities.[134]
Other work
A friend of Ian Charleson and an admirer of his work, McKellen contributed an entire chapter to For Ian Charleson: A Tribute.[135] A recording of McKellen's voice is heard before performances at the Royal Festival Hall, reminding patrons to ensure their mobile phones and watch alarms are switched off and to keep coughing to a minimum.[136][137] He also took part in the 2012 Summer Paralympics opening ceremony in London as Prospero from Shakespeare's The Tempest.[62]
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1 2 3 Steele, Bruce C. (11 December 2001). "The Knight's Crusade". The Advocate. pp.36–38, 40–45. Archived from the original on 14 September 2008. Retrieved 16 February 2009.
↑ Adams, Stephen (30 November 2009). "McKellen about his stepmother". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 1 March 2014. Retrieved 8 January 2014.
↑ Panoptic Artifex – Christopher Baima & Greg Sweet (15 September 2013). "Honorary Board". Only Make Believe. Archived from the original on 31 December 2013. Retrieved 5 January 2014.
↑ "Sir Ian McKellen receives award from University of Ulster". BBC News. BBC. 3 February 2013. Archived from the original on 6 February 2013. Retrieved 3 February 2013. [O]ne of the greatest actors on stage and screen [...] Sir Ian's performances have guaranteed him a place in the canon of English stage and film actors
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