Ian McKellen
The Biography
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- 3,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
'[A] fascinating voyage round McKellen' Simon Callow, Guardian
'Surely the definitive McKellen biography' Alexander Larman, Observer
'A well-researched, eminently readable book' Benedict Nightingale, The Times
Few actors achieve in their lifetime what Sir Ian McKellen has. A repertoire of vast commercial success coupled with critically acclaimed and authoritative Shakespearian roles. A man whose achievements inspire both admiration and affection. McKellen has been feted and admired in every country across the globe, and has been knighted by, and received the Companionship of Honour from Queen Elizabeth II. He is an icon of, and ardent campaigner in the cause for LGBT rights.
Many of us know of McKellen through his depiction of Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. Garry O'Connor's definitive biography reveals the man behind McKellen the actor. The inside story of the person himself: a constantly developing drama and a work in progress. Yet O'Connor pulls no punches: some of his revelations may be controversial to his fans, even explosive, given McKellen's constant ability to shock and surprise. The author directed McKellen in some of his very first roles. This is an unflinching yet deeply intimate and affectionate biography that, like McKellen himself, will stand the test of time as a rounded and complete portrait of one of the most unusual geniuses of our times.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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."
