Ian McKellen Reveals Alec Guinness Urged Him to Avoid Gay Rights Campaigning in 1988

Ian McKellen has disclosed that Alec Guinness pleaded with him to abandon his public campaigning for gay rights shortly after McKellen came out as gay in 1988. McKellen, one of the co-founders of the LGBTQ+ lobby group Stonewall in 1989, said Guinness took him for an Italian lunch in Pimlico around that time.

"He had heard about my work to establish Stonewall – a lobby group to present to the government and the world at large the case for treating UK lesbians and gays equally under the law with the rest of the population," McKellen told The Guardian.

Guinness expressed unease with McKellen’s immersion in politics and advised him to withdraw from the effort. "He thought it somewhat unseemly for an actor to dabble in public or political affairs and advised me, sort of pleaded with me, to withdraw," McKellen said.

" The 86-year-old recalled the conversation while watching the solo show Two Halves of Guinness, currently on tour and performed by actor Zeb Soanes.

The play hints at Alec Guinness’s latent bisexuality. "This all came back watching the current tour of Two Halves of Guinness, a solo show which hints at Sir Alec’s latent bisexuality in a way that would have upset him, I suppose," McKellen stated. Alec Guinness was married to Merula Silvia Salaman from 1938 until his death in 2000.

In 2001, two biographies stated that he was privately bisexual, a fact known only to his close friends and colleagues. One authorised biography claimed that Guinness had been charged with performing "a homosexual act" in a public lavatory in 1946. When arrested in 1946, Guinness gave his name as Herbert Pocket, the Great Expectations character he played in a film released that same year.

McKellen said he remembered the lunch only while watching the play that references these aspects of Guinness’s life. McKellen is currently promoting his new art forgery drama The Christophers, in which he co-stars with Michaela Coel. @Independent reported the details of the interview in which McKellen reflected on the encounter with Guinness and its resurfacing during the theatre production.

The actor has previously expressed regret about not coming out publicly earlier than 1988. In 2015 he said he would likely have been "a different person and a happier one" if he had not waited. "I regret and always shall that I didn’t see the significance of coming out at a much earlier date," he said.