Sir Ian McKellen- Of Wizards, Magentos and Pride

11/17/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Each week at LGR we are hoping to bring you, the reading public, a special gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or allied celebrity. This week, we turn this column over to Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE. Sir Ian McKellen is mostly likely famous, by now, for his portrayal of the wizard Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, as well as for his portrayal of Magneto in the X-Men trilogy. As a British actor, McKellen has been in a variety of different roles over his long career.

Ian McKellen was born on the eve of World War II on 25 May 1939 in the Lancashire town of Burnley, but spent much of his formative years in the town of Wigan, which is part of Greater Manchester. The town was the site of factories and coal processors, and the whole area was extensively bombed by Nazi forces. The effects of the war linger with McKellen even to this day. During the 9/11 attacks, a reporter asked him why he was so calm, and he reported as having quipped “Well, darling, you forget — I slept under a steel plate until I was four years old.” For many a lower and middle class family, the evacuations out of the major metropolitan areas was financially impossible.

As the child of civil engineer and lay preacher Denis Murray and Margery Louis McKellen, he grew up in a non-conformist, but deeply Christian household. His mother passed away when he was twelve, and his father remarried. Denis McKellen would pass away twelve years later.

McKellen attended Bolton School, where he was first introduced to the theater as an actor. He remains a supporter of both the school and the Bolton Little Theater to this day.

Sir Ian came out publicly in 1988. When he told his step-mother, Gladys, she was glad that he no longer had to lie about his homosexuality, but she was completely accepting. She was a member of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers. Recently, the Quakers came out in support of full marriage rights for gays and lesbians in Great Britain.

What prompted McKellen to come out to the public on a BBC Radio 3 program was the Parliamentary amendment Section 28 which made the public promotion of homosexuality a crime. The amendment, championed by Dame Margaret Thatcher (who is still alive despite rumors of her recent demise due to a cat of a similar name), did not have any criminal penalties, and thus was never actually enforced. It was put into law in 1988, removed from the law books in Scotland in 2000, and in England in 2003. McKellen chose to get involved in the LGBT rights movement, including becoming one of the founders of Stonewall, no matter what the negative effects of his decision would be to his career.

If it had a negative effect on his career, it does not show in his filmography. From 1988 until the present, McKellen has made some fifty film and television appearances, including his most famous role to date- Gandalf the Grey in Lord of the Rings. He also teamed up with fellow Royal Shakespeare Society alum Patrick Stewart for the X-Men movies where he played Eric Lehnscherr, a Nazi Concentration Camp survivor.

Like many a good British actor, he does television for the exposure, film for the money, but does stage for the love of acting. He has had numerous roles on the stage ranging from appearing in Dr. Faustus to the most recent revival of Waiting for Godot, opposite Sir Patrick Hewes Stewart, most famous in the United States as Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation. He played to sold out crowds for various productions including his recent foray as King Lear, in which he teamed up with long time director Trevor Nunn. Indeed, across the years, McKellen has worked with many famous actors and actresses such as Dame Judi Dench in MacBeth, and Sir Derek Jacobi, who was one of McKellen’s first great unrequited crushes. Derek George Jacobi is also openly gay (and likely to be profiled here in the future).

Over all, McKellen has made his life in acting one that is often intertwined with his activism. He has appeared in films such as And the Band Played On, and Gods and Monsters. The film Gods and Monsters, in which he stars opposite Brendan Fraser, is a biopic about James Whale, director of Frankenstein. Whale was openly gay throughout the majority of his career.

In 2002, McKellen attended the Oscars with his then boyfriend Nick Cuthell, and was the second actor to do so. The first was the late Sir Nigel Hawthorne in 1995.

As one last note, in 1994, McKellen announced at the closing ceremonies of the Gay Games, “I’m Sir Ian McKellen, but you can call me Serena.” Serena was a nickname given to him by Stephen Fry, who is also openly gay. Fry is most famous for being part of the comedy duo Fry and Laurie, where he starred opposite House actor Hugh Laurie.

Ian McKellen continues to act, and to be active in LGBT advocacy. It is rumored that he will return to the big screen as Gandalf the Grey in the upcoming adaptation of The Hobbit. Currently, he is starring in the remake of The Prisoner as Number Two on AMC.

Photo via Wikipedia