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Worldwide fame as Magneto and then Gandalf in The Lord Of The Rings has come to McKellen later in life, after decades of good work on the small and big screen. Like many Brits, his classical training has been the catalyst - his wonderful diction adding class and authenticity to the most fantastic of lines. Born in Burnley in 1939, McKellen spent some of his summers as a youth in Stratford watching Shakespeare performed by the likes of Olivier and Gielgud. Most of his early triumphs were in the theatre; Scandal was the film that brought him to the limelight in 1989, as politician John Profumo. This role was subsequently eclipsed by a striking turn in Richard Loncraine's modernist Richard III and then his Oscar-winning portrait of Frankenstein director James Whale in Gods And Monsters. He was knighted in 1991.
