Ian McKellen
Born: 25 May 1939
Where: Burnley, Lancashire, UK
Sir Ian McKellen is one of the most acclaimed actors of his generation - and still in the public eye by virtue of the blockbuster Lord of the Rings.
He has been honoured with more than 40 international awards for his work on stage and screen.
He received Oscar, Golden Globe and Screen Actors' Guild awards for his outstanding portrayal of Hollywood director James Whale in Bill Condon's Gods And Monsters.
The son of a civil engineer, he first acted at school and at Cambridge University, where he studied English Literature.
Legend has it he was attracted to acting as an escape from the trauma of his mother's death and bullying at school.
His film career began with the Margaret Drabble-scripted drama Thank You All Very Much in 1969 opposite Sandy Dennis.
However, he returned to TV work, including Hedda Gabler and The Recruiting Officer, before he went back to the big screen in Priest of Love and the supernatural thriller The Keep.
In 1985, he starred in Plenty and portrayed disgraced government minister John Profumo in Scandal.
In 1990 he was knighted in reportedly one of the last actions of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister.
His film career began to take off in America in the 1990s with Last Action Hero opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger and the fantasy thriller The Shadow.
In 1995, he starred in the romantic drama Jack & Sarah and chilled as Richard III in a contemporary fascist spin on the Shakespeare classic.
Subsequent appearances included the period drama Restoration, the Holocaust drama Bent and his critically-acclaimed turn in Gods & Monsters.
In 1998, he played a Nazi war criminal in Apt Pupil and made his first appearance as mutant Eric Lensherr/Magneto in X-Men in 2000.
The following year he played white wizard Gandalf in Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in the first part of Peter Jackson's trilogy.
He is a co-founder of Stonewall, which lobbies for equal legal and social rights for lesbians and gay men in the UK.
He famously went for tea at Downing Street to discuss gay rights with former prime minister John Major.
After completing LOTR and X-Men 2 - X2 - he provided the voice of Zebedee in the animated Magic Roundabout and psychiatrist Peter Cleave in Asylum.
