- published: 17 Apr 2014
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Michael Vivian Fyfe Pennington (born 7 June 1943) is a British director and actor who, together with director Michael Bogdanov, founded the English Shakespeare Company. Although primarily a stage actor, he is best known to wider audiences for his role as Moff Jerjerrod, commanding officer of the Death Star in the film Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.
Pennington was born in Cambridge, England, the son of Euphemia Willock (née Fyfe) and Vivian Maynard Cecil Pennington. Most of his career has been on stage in works such as Hamlet (RSC), Oedipus the King, The Entertainer, and Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde. In 1986, Pennington and director Michael Bogdanov together founded the English Shakespeare Company. As joint artistic director, he starred in the company's inaugural productions of The Henrys and, in 1987, the seven-play history cycle of The Wars of the Roses, which toured worldwide. He has directed plays including Twelfth Night at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater in the United States. A notable TV appearance was on the television movie The Return of Sherlock Holmes in the late 1987. He appeared in the 2005 film Fragile, co-starring Calista Flockhart. He is the author of the book Are You There, Crocodile? which combines biographical material about the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov with a narration of Pennington's efforts to write a one-man play about Chekhov; the book also includes the full text of the play that resulted.
Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH CBE (born 25 May 1939) is an English actor. He has won multiple Laurence Olivier Awards, a Tony Award, two Academy Award nominations, and five Emmy Award nominations. His work has spanned genres from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction. He is known for film roles such as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Magneto in the X-Men films, and as Sir Leigh Teabing in The Da Vinci Code.
McKellen was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1979, was knighted in 1991 for services to the performing arts, and was made a Companion of Honour for services to drama and to equality, in the 2008 New Year Honours.
McKellen was born in Burnley, Lancashire, England, though he spent most of his early life in Wigan. Born shortly before the outbreak of World War II, the experience had some lasting impact on him. In response to an interview question when an interviewer remarked that he seemed quite calm in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks, he said: "Well, darling, you forget — I slept under a steel plate until I was four years old."