Ian Mckellen - Biography

Last Editor: niferbow				Ian Mckellen Biography -   Name : Ian Mckellen Profession : Actor Birth Details : born May 25, 1939

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Ian Mckellen Detailed Biography -

Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CBE (born May 25, 1939) is a highly acclaimed Oscar nominated actor on both stage and screen. His roles have spanned genres from serious Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular action movies. He is also known as an activist for the rights of gays and lesbians. The role that made McKellen famous was his 1969 portrayal of King Edward II of England in the Prospect Theatre Company's touring production of Marlowe's Edward II. The production was controversial for its explicit torture scenes and implicit homosexuality. He later reprised the role for the BBC. In 1972, he founded the Actors' Company with his friend Edward Petherbridge, and this was the beginning of his reputation as a spokesman for actors and the British theatre in general. Between 1974 and 1978, he enhanced his reputation with leading roles in Royal Shakespeare Company productions such as Romeo and Juliet (in which he played opposite Francesca Annis) and Macbeth (opposite Judi Dench). In 1978 he met his second lover, Sean Mathias, at the Edinburgh Festival. According to Mathias, the love affair was tempestuous, with conflicts over McKellen's success in acting versus Mathias' somewhat less-successful career. Mathias said that "in those days, the world was far more homophobic, and me being the young, pretty boy — people wouldn't take me seriously as an actor, being Ian's boyfriend." Mathias was 22 when they met; McKellen 39. However, Mathias also says McKellen "did nothing but help me" in his career. McKellen starred on Broadway in Bent, a play about gay men in Nazi death camps, starting in 1979. Despite his role in this ground-breaking play, which brought to public view for the first time in a widespread way the persecution of gay people in Nazi Germany, McKellen was not yet out publicly. At first, he was unsure whether he dared to take the role. "As impressed as I was by it, I thought 'My God! Do I dare be in this?' And Sean read it and said, 'Well you have to do it'," he said. Bent proved to be of great significance to McKellen. Since starring in the original Broadway production of Bent, he has been involved in two other productions of the play. In 1990 he starred in the revival at the National Theatre in London directed by Mathias, and also made a supporting appearance in the movie version, also directed by Mathias, which was released in 1997. McKellen's talents won him successively more important and visible parts, until eventually in 1980 he won the role of Salieri in the Broadway production of Amadeus. He was awarded the Tony Award for his performance, the most prestigious award given to actors in live theatre in the United States. His appearance as Walter, a mentally-retarded adult, in a 1982 television play, won him a new following; but he was still a relative unknown to much of the U.S. public. In the 1990s, McKellen began to branch into major American film and television roles. In 1993, McKellen had a supporting role as a South African tycoon in the sleeper hit Six Degrees of Separation, in which he starred with Stockard Channing, Donald Sutherland, and Will Smith. In the same year, he was also exposed to North American audiences in minor roles in the television miniseries Tales of the City (based on the novel by his friend Armistead Maupin) and the movie Last Action Hero, in which he played Death. Also in 1993, McKellen played a large role in the TV movie And the Band Played On, about the discovery of the AIDS virus. In 1995, he played the title role in Richard III. The performance was critically acclaimed, and he was nominated for Golden Globe and BAFTA awards, and won the European Film Award for best actor. His breakthrough role for mainstream American audiences came with the modestly-acclaimed Apt Pupil, based on a story by Stephen King. McKellen portrayed an old Nazi officer, living under a false name in the U.S., who was befriended by a curious teenager (Brad Renfro) who threatened to expose him unless he told his story in detail. Queen Elizabeth II appointed him a CBE in 1979 and knighted him in 1990 for his outstanding work and contributions to the theatre, becoming Sir Ian McKellen. In 1994 McKellen put together a one man show, A Knight Out. The show was very successful and he still performs it today. He considers it a perpetual "work in progress". Sir Ian McKellen played the wizard Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, for which he earned an Academy Award nomination. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the 1998 film Gods and Monsters, where he played James Whale, gay director of Show Boat (1936) and Frankenstein. More recently, McKellen has become a major global star by playing leading roles in blockbuster films. First he played Magneto in X-Men and its sequel X2. He followed that performance with the role of Gandalf in the three films that comprise the screen adaptation of The Lord of the Rings (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King). For The Fellowship of the Ring he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He will reprise the role of Magneto in the upcoming 2006 sequel X-Men: The Last Stand. In April and May 2005, he played the role of Mel Hutchwright in Granada Television's long running soap opera, Coronation Street.