Not telling his parents he was gay is Sir Ian McKellen’s greatest regret in life, the world-famous actor has confided to teenagers at a Gloucestershire school.
Speaking to a group of pupils at Severn Vale secondary school the Lord of the Rings star said he regretted the fact that he "did not get around" to telling his mother or father, a lay preacher, before they died.
"My mother died when I was 12 and my father died when I was 24, and I didn't get around to telling him," he explained.
Both his parents were religious but he has previously described them as "non-conformist Christians".
McKellen had been invited to take part in a drama workshop about homophobic bullying and told the school children it took him decades to 'out' himself, he told the schoolchildren, according to a report in The Daily Telegraph..
He said he was impressed that the school was tackling the problem and told pupils: "Being gay was a topic that was never mentioned when I was your age. We had not really invented the word gay - at school I used to be called Oscar, after Oscar Wilde.,” the report says.
"If you were gay there was nowhere to go and no one to talk to, there was no other gay person as far as I knew.
"So to come back to school for the first time in 50 years and see this is heartening, to see that as a nation we have so rapidly grown up.
"When I was 29 it was illegal for me to make love, I had a boyfriend and we slept together but the law said that we should be in prison.
"It was very hard to walk out in the street and say to him don't touch me or brush your hand against mine, there may be a police man around the corner."
"There has been a huge change in this country over the last 20 years in people's regard for gay people.”
McKellen said that for too long gay people were frightened to declare themselves.
“I wanted to change people who were discriminating against gay people and that is pretty much being achieved now, some schools are really facing up to deal with it and some are not, but this is one that is.”
There is a wonderful atmosphere in this school and people are genuinely helping each other.
“My impression is more schools should be like this one and Gloucestershire should be very proud.”