Ian McKellen

September 9, 2019
Novelist and biographer O’Connor (The Vagabond Lover) explores the life and work of British actor Ian McKellen, a longtime friend, in this engaging but thin biography. Starting with McKellen’s Lancashire boyhood, where he lost his mother at age 12, O’Connor recounts McKellen’s early years through his Cambridge education, to his London stage debut in 1964, which was marred by tragedy when McKellen’s father died in a car crash on the drive home after seeing him perform. O’Connor then charts McKellen’s upward trajectory in theater—peaks included his 1976 Royal Shakespeare Company pairing with Judi Dench in Macbeth and Tony-winning role as Salieri in Amadeus’s 1980 Broadway premiere—and his reticence about revealing his sexuality before, in the late 1980s, he embraced LGBTQ advocacy in response to the AIDS crisis and homophobic British laws. O’Connor’s account—which closes with the stratospheric fame McKellen achieved in the X-Men and Lord of the Rings films—benefits from his insider access, but is hampered by an uncertain tone—sometimes conversational, sometimes formal—and occasionally faulty chronology (as when O’Connor seemingly has McKellen meeting “President Reagan” in 1992). A mostly entertaining introduction to the pre-Gandalf Ian McKellen, this book never quite manages its goal of showing “this complicated and complex man in all shades and colours.”

September 15, 2019
The life and career of the beloved actor. O'Connor (The Vagabond Lover: A Father-Son Memoir, 2017, etc.) has known McKellen (b. 1939) since their student days at Cambridge in the 1950s, but when he asked his celebrated friend to help write this book, McKellen declined, saying "I've only got a few years left," and "I'd be wasting your time, my time, correcting and disputing things." The resulting book demonstrates how much McKellen has done with his years and plans to do with his remaining allotment. Born in Burnley, England, to a civil engineer father and "traditional Lancashire housewife," McKellen was devastated at age 12 when his mother died from breast cancer, a tragedy that "became a driver towards endless achievement and ambition." O'Connor chronicles the highs and lows of that ambition, from McKellen's work in Cambridge plays to his long career in the theater to his late-in-life success in films, most remuneratively his roles as Magneto in the X-Men series and as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings series. The author also charts the trajectory of McKellen's personal life, including his early realization that he was gay, his many years of keeping it hidden from everyone but close theater friends, and his decades as a vocal champion of gay rights. O'Connor inserts himself into the narrative more than he should: the conversations he has had with other theater people, the plays he has directed, and so on. He often digresses with tangential stories, such as the three pages of anecdotes about Laurence Olivier, whom McKellen idolizes. However, there's enough backstage insight to entertain McKellen fans. The book is packed with anecdotes, as when McKellen, after his Lord of the Rings success, takes guests to a restaurant, "rises to his feet, looks around benignly grinning at everyone, and addresses the company with the words, 'Gandalf pays!' " A chatty biography of one of the era's greatest actors.

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October 1, 2019

Writing with a truly British flair, O'Connor (Alec Guinness: A Life; Secret Woman: A Life of Peggy Ashcroft) has crafted another intimate portrait of a great English actor. The book deservedly gives Ian McKellen's (b. 1939) professional and personal life equal measure, as O'Connor--who has known McKellen since 1958, when they were both studying at Cambridge--provides detailed thoughts on the multitude of characters McKellen has brought to life on stage and screen, while simultaneously chronicling his long and enduring LGBTQ rights activism. McKellen has moved between the works of William Shakespeare and J.R.R. Tolkien, portraying characters such as Salieri and Magneto. His life makes for a compelling story, and O'Connor draws readers in with a well-informed, conversational, first-person narrative that is unusual for a biography but highly effective. As McKellen has long made clear his aversion to writing a memoir, this volume may prove to be the most intimate portrait of the actor. VERDICT A wonderful biography of a memorable artist, and a worthy addition to all libraries.--Peter Thornell, Hingham P.L., MA

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2019
Most of the world knows him as the wizard from Peter Jackson's cinematic interpretation of Tolkien's visionary world. But before he was Gandalf, Ian McKellen was an acclaimed stage actor, especially known for his roles in plays by Shakespeare, Chekhov, and Beckett. The reticent actor had agreed to write a memoir, but he returned his advance when he realized he couldn't share his private life, reluctantly agreeing to cooperate with biographer O'Connor, who he has known since 1958 when they were students at the University of Cambridge. Although everyone in the theater community knew he was gay, McKellen came out late in life, a risky move, and the weight of living a lie for so long is addressed. Fame on the big screen also came relatively late in McKellen's career, though he had always longed for it, and it arrived grandly in The Lord of the Rings series and The Hobbit, and also in his Academy Award-nominated role of James Whale in Gods and Monsters. Fans of McKellen and his films will appreciate O'Connor's thoughtful and gentle approach.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)