Personal Life
McKellen and his first serious partner, Brian Taylor, a history teacher from Bolton, began their relationship in 1964. It lasted for eight years, ending in 1972. They lived in London, where McKellen continued to pursue his career as an actor. For over a decade, he has lived in a five-story Victorian conversion in Narrow Street, Limehouse. In 1978 he met his second partner, Sean Mathias, at the Edinburgh Festival. This relationship lasted until 1988. According to Mathias, the ten-year love affair was tempestuous, with conflicts over McKellen's success in acting versus Mathias' somewhat less-successful career. Mathias and McKellen remained friends, and Mathias directed McKellen in Waiting For Godot at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 2009. The pair have entered into business partnership with Evgeny Lebedev purchasing the lease on The Grapes public house in Narrow Street, close to McKellen's home.
A friend of Ian Charleson and a great admirer of his work, McKellen contributed a chapter to the 1990 book, For Ian Charleson: A Tribute.
In the late 1980s, McKellen lost his appetite for meat except for fish, and so mostly excludes it from his diet.
Read more about this topic: Ian McKellen
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“Life is unnecessarily long. Moments of insight, of fine personal relation, a smile, a glance,—what ample borrowers of eternity they are!”
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