Ian McKellen, biblical vandal

Sir Ian’s coming! Hide the hotel Bible!

In a profile by John Lahr in the Aug. 27 edition of the New Yorker, Ian McKellen, who may be occupying a Los Angeles hotel room while he leads the Royal Shakespeare Company in “King Lear” and Chekhov’s “The Seagull” at UCLA’s Royce Hall, Oct. 19-28, confesses that part of his agenda as an openly gay famous person is ripping the page with Leviticus 20:13 out of the Bible whenever his hotel room comes Scripture-equipped.

“It’s the one thing I find difficult to defend but do go on doing,” confesses the distinguished Shakespearean actor, most widely seen in his Moses-like turn as the warrior-wizard Gandalf in “The Lord of the Rings” film trilogy.

In the King James Version, the verse McKellen excises reads: “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.”

The actor has campaigned for gay rights since coming out publicly on BBC radio in 1988.

-- Mike Boehm