Page 34 - Great Elizabethans

The actor and activist Ian McKellen is best known for playing Gandalf the wizard in The Lord of the Rings. As well as winning awards and thrilling audiences, Ian has campaigned for the rights of LGBT+ people for many years.
A LOVE OF THEATRE
In May 1939, a few months before the Second World War broke out, Ian Murray McKellen was born in Burnley, a mill town in the north of England. His family soon moved to nearby Wigan, where Ian loved watching the traders shouting in Market Square – their playful patter showed the little boy how powerful acting performances could be, even selling apples! He also loved listening to his father, Denis, play the piano when he was in bed.
But Ian’s early life wasn’t always cosy – Britain was now at war, and he and his family were often afraid that bombs would fall on their home. Five-year-old Ian slept under a bomb-proof steel table, and all the windows had to be blacked out in case a glimmer of light showed an enemy plane where to target.
Despite the restrictions of wartime, Ian and his older sister, Jean, grew up loving the theatre, just like their mother, Margery. When Ian was nine, his parents gave him a folding toy theatre for Christmas, with cardboard scenery for famous plays like Cinderella and Hamlet, which could be moved with wires. At school, his English teacher often cast him in plays, especially in the miniature theatre where the boys put on
shows once a term. Ian also went on school summer camps to Stratford-upon-Avon. Here, he would queue overnight for cheap tickets to see some of the greatest actors alive – even though that meant he sometimes fell asleep during the show!
At school, Ian and his friends were completely ‘stage–struck’, and would startle other boys by acting out scenes in the playground!
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