Ian McKellen

In 1988, at the age of 48, Ian McKellen came out on BBC radio. He was already one of Britain's most celebrated classical actors, and he chose the moment deliberately, to argue against Section 28, a new law banning local authorities from "promoting" homosexuality. The next year he helped found Stonewall, the British gay rights organization, and he has campaigned ever since. He later said coming out was the best thing he ever did.

He was born on May 25, 1939, in Burnley, Lancashire, at half past nine in the evening, British Summer Time, according to his own website, and Sagittarius rises in his chart. Sagittarius is the sign of principle and conviction, of speaking up for what one believes, and the Ascendant shapes how a person engages with the world. A Sagittarius Ascendant tends to bring frankness, humor and a crusading streak, which describes both the activist and the cheerful public figure who has spent decades talking to audiences about anything from Shakespeare to equal rights.

His Sun is in Gemini in the sixth house. Gemini is the sign of language and versatility, and the sixth is about daily work and craft. A Gemini Sun in the sixth describes a working actor in the truest sense, someone who builds a life on the constant practice of words. McKellen grew up in Wigan and Bolton, acted at school and at Cambridge, and then spent decades on the stage, much of it with the Royal Shakespeare Company. His Macbeth, opposite Judi Dench in 1976, is still regarded as one of the great Shakespeare productions of its era.

His fifth house, tied to performance and pleasure, holds Mercury and Venus in Taurus. Taurus is sensuous and unhurried, and with the planets of speech and beauty there, astrologers would expect someone who takes pleasure in the sound and shape of language. McKellen's voice, and his delight in verse, have been central to his reputation.

Film fame came late. He was in his late fifties when Gods and Monsters, about the director James Whale, earned him his first Oscar nomination. Then, around the turn of the century, he became Magneto in the X-Men films and Gandalf in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, which brought him a second nomination and made him recognizable to a generation that had never seen him on stage.

His Moon is at the very beginning of Virgo in the ninth house, the area of philosophy and wider horizons. Virgo Moons are careful, analytical and modest about their feelings. He was knighted in 1991 and made a Companion of Honour in 2008, and he marked his 80th birthday by touring a one-man show to theaters across Britain.

The young man from Lancashire who loved words found two stages in the end, the theater and the platform, and the Sagittarius rising made sure he spoke from both.