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Ian McKellen, in full Sir Ian Murray McKellen, (born May 25, 1939, Burnley, Lancashire, England), British actor of great versatility, noted for his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company and for his eclectic filmography.

McKellen attended St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge, where as a student actor he was often directed by John Barton, later of the Royal Shakespeare Company. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in 1961, McKellen made his professional debut in Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons. Acting steadily throughout the 1960s, McKellen won both popular and critical acclaim in his performances as both William Shakespeare’s Richard II and Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II for the 1969 Edinburgh Festival. In 1971 he cofounded the Actors’ Company, a collective of actors who had equal say in the choosing and casting of plays and in the recruiting of directors. He left the group in 1974 to join the Royal Shakespeare Company at the invitation of Barton.

A versatile actor, McKellen played a range of characters from Shakespearean to contemporary, and many roles (in plays by such authors as Anton Chekhov, Frank Wedekind, and others) in between. Though his interpretations were frequently controversial, his immense talent for acting was unquestionable. He received Laurence Olivier Awards for his work in the London stagings of such plays as Bent (1979), Wild Honey (1984), and Richard III (1991). In 1981 McKellen won a Tony Award for his performance as Antonio Salieri in a Broadway production of Amadeus. He also directed several plays and wrote and performed a one-man show called Acting Shakespeare.

In addition to his stage work, McKellen appeared in a number of motion pictures, notably a film version of David Hare’s Plenty (1985) and Richard III (1995), an adaptation of Shakespeare’s play that is set in a fictionalized version of England in the 1930s; McKellen also cowrote the screenplay. In 1998 he portrayed director James Whale in Gods and Monsters, for which he received his first Academy Award nomination, for best actor. He later played Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings (2001, 2002, 2003), a film trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy (1954–55). He earned another Oscar nomination (for supporting actor) for his work in the 2001 film. McKellen later reprised the role of Gandalf in a series of films (2012, 2013, 2014) based on Tolkien’s The Hobbit (1937).

McKellen’s other movie credits included the X-Men series (2000, 2003, 2006, 2014), in which he was cast as supervillain Magneto, and The Da Vinci Code (2006). McKellen’s subtlety and exactitude as an actor were showcased in the character study Mr. Holmes (2015), about the attempts of a nonagenarian Sherlock Holmes to resolve a case that has bedeviled him for 30 years. In 2017 he appeared in the musical Beauty and the Beast. McKellen also starred in the television comedy Vicious (2013–16), in which he and Derek Jacobi played a sniping but ultimately loving gay couple. In 2019 McKellen starred with Helen Mirren in the thriller The Good Liar, and he also appeared in Cats, an adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s hugely successful stage musical.

McKellen, who was homosexual, was a noted gay rights activist. He was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1979 and was knighted in 1991. He was named to the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in 2007.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.

- Ian McKellen

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