Sir Ian Murray McKellen was born on May 25, 1939, in Burnley, Lancashire, United Kingdom, the second of two children born to Margery and Dennis McKellen. His sister, Jean, was five years older than him. Born in war-time, Ian spent the first years of his life sleeping beneath a bomb-proof dining room table. It wasn’t until World War II ended that he realized that war wasn’t a normal state of the world.
Sir Ian had his first theater experience at a very young age, seeing Peter Pan on stage at the age of three. This started a life-long fascination with theater. He performed in school productions, playing his first role in a Shakespearean play when he was still an adolescent. Through his school, he was able to attend a summer camp as a teenager that took place in Stratford-Upon-Avon, home of William Shakespeare. There, he was able to see Shakespearean productions performed by the likes of Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Charles Laughton, and Vivien Leigh, to name a few.
Sir Ian studied at St. Catharine’s College, where his grades tended to suffer due to the time he was putting in on stage in the school’s theater productions. After graduating in 1961, he went directly into acting as a professional, starting with a performance as Roper in A Man for All Seasons at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry. This began a long and busy career on the stage, as McKellen was fortunate enough to work consistently throughout the years. He has appeared in countless Shakespearean productions, playing many of the most coveted roles, including Richard II, Romeo, Hamlet, Macbeth, Richard III, and Iago, among others. In fact, in 2021, he reprised his role as Hamlet in an age-blind production of the play in London, roughly 50 years after he originally played the part.
McKellen’s career is not limited only to the stage, of course. Many people know him best for his film roles, particularly those from the last 20 years or so. Though he has been appearing in films since the 1980s, he is perhaps most famous for his more recent roles as Magneto in the X-Men series of films, and for his role as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings franchise. McKellen was nominated for an Oscar for his performance in the first Lord of the Rings film, Fellowship of the Ring. This was his second Academy Award nomination, as he was first nominated for his work in Gods and Monsters in 1999.
Although he realized that he was gay as a teenager, Sir Ian did not publicly come out until he was nearly 40 years old. He was openly gay with regard to many of his co-workers and family members, and he had two long-term relationships with men, first with Brian Taylor, a history teacher, and later with Sean Mathias, a director with whom he continued to work after the relationship ended, including in 2021’s production of Hamlet. McKellen has said that because he was living comfortably as a gay man in committed relationships he didn’t feel pressure to come out publicly or to advocate for gay rights. This changed in 1988 when the British government introduced legislation known as Section 28, which aimed to prohibit local authorities from “promoting homosexuality”. Unfortunately, the legislation passed and went into effect. McKellen says that he took this personally and that this was the catalyst to him becoming a gay rights activist.
As part of his activism, Sir Ian co-founded an organization called Stonewall, after the Stonewall Riots that occurred in New York in 1969 and kicked off the Gay Rights Movement in the United States, and soon around the world. The organization lobbies for the LGBTQ+ community and works to enact legal and social reform with regard to LGBTQ+ rights. Sir Ian is also a patron of Pride events in London and Oxford, and has attended and participated in many Pride events throughout the UK. In addition to his work in his home country, has also travelled internationally to advocate for legal and policy change in places where the LGBTQ+ community still faces serious legal oppression, such as India, China, and Russia.
McKellen has also been outspoken in his support for the trans community. He has pointed out that some of the laws that affect transgender people are not much different than laws that used to affect the gay community. He has encouraged other members of the LGBTQ+ community to show their support for trans people because, as he put it:
“The connection between us all is we come under the queer umbrella, we are queer.”
Sir Ian McKellen
Sir Ian turned 82-years-old this year, and he is continuing to work on stage, on screen, and in the fight for equality for all members of the LGBTQ+ community. And it doesn’t appear that he plans to slow down any time soon.
https://www.mckellen.com/life/per.htmhttps://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jun/13/sir-ian-mckellen-what-does-old-mean-quite-honestly-i-feel-about-12
