Long considered one of the finest British stage actors, Ian McKellen has defied conventional wisdom which posits that being openly homosexual would either pigeonhole you or destroy your career. In fact, since his 1988 decision to "come out" during a BBC radio broadcast, he not only has been knighted for his services to the theater (in 1991) but found himself an unlikely movie star.

Born in Burnley on May 25, 1939 and raised in Wigan and Bolton, Ian Murray McKellen knew from an early age that he wanted to pursue a career on stage. His parents, a civil engineer and his homemaker wife,