Ian McKellen

Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE (born 25 May 1939) is an English actor. He is the recipient of six Laurence Olivier Awards, a Tony Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a BIF Award, two Saturn Awards, four Drama Desk Awards and two Critics' Choice Awards. He has also received two Academy Award nominations, four BAFTA nominations and five Emmy Award nominations. McKellen's work spans genres ranging from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction. His most well known film roles include Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies and Magneto in the X-Men films.

McKellen was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1979,knighted in 1991 for services to the performing arts, and made a Companion of Honour for services to drama and to equality, in the 2008 New Year Honours. He was made a Freeman of the City of London in October 2014.

Early life

McKellen was born on 25 May 1939 in Burnley, Lancashire, the son of Margery Lois (née Sutcliffe) and Denis Murray McKellen, a civil engineer. He was their second child, with a sister, Jean, five years his senior. Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, his family moved to Wigan. They lived there through the war and his early childhood. They relocated to Bolton in 1951, after his father had been promoted. The experience of living through the war as a young child had some lasting impact on him, and he later claimed that "only after peace resumed ... did I realise that war wasn't normal." In response to an interview question, when an interviewer remarked that he seemed quite calm in the aftermath of 11 September attacks, he said: "Well, darling, you forget—I slept under a steel plate until I was four years old."