Sir Ian McKellen made his debut on U.S. movie screens in 1969 when he appeared opposite Our Lady of the Nervous Tics, Sandy Dennis, in this simple, very powerful story of a young student who becomes pregnant after a brief fling and decides to raise the baby on her own. Dennis suppressed her famous mannerisms to delivery a quiet, understated performance, while McKellen scored with critics as the television announcer who never learns that he has a daughter.

McKellen had been fascinated with the stage since his childhood and began working professionally shortly after he graduated from college in 1961. It wasn't until 1968, however, that he moved into film acting with Thank You All Very Much (1969), an adaptation of Margaret Drabble's popular feminist novel, The Millstone. Until recently, however, his film work has been only sporadic as he concentrated on stage work. In fact, it would be 12 years until he returned to the screen, as D.H. Lawrence in Priest of Love (1981). Meanwhile, he carved a reputation as one of the world's top classical actors in a variety of Shakespearean leads and the role of Salieri in Peter Shaffer's Amadeus, which brought him a Tony Award when he took the show to Broadway in 1981. He would also win Tony nominations for his one-man show Ian McKellen Acting Shakespeare and his re-setting of Shakespeare's Richard III in the '30s, with echoes of Hitler's rise to power. He was knighted for his service to the British theatre in 1989.

McKellenåÀs film career didn't really take off until he brought Richard III to the screen in 1995. Following that, he scored a critical hit as director James Whale in Gods and Monsters (1998), which brought him a Golden Globe and most of that year's critics awards and should have won him the Oscar for Best Actor (he lost to Roberto Benigni in Life Is Beautiful). More recently he's expanded his range to include commercial blockbusters: the arch-villain Magneto in X-Men (2000) and as Gandalf in the upcoming Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) and two scheduled sequels.

Dennis was at the height of her career as a leading lady when she made Thank You All Very Much. She had won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1966, then moved on to starring roles in films like Up the Down Staircase (1967) and The Out-of-Towners (1970). Ultimately, however, her quirky mannerisms typecast her in increasingly unsuccessful films, but she came back with several strong supporting performances - in Alan Alda's The Four Seasons (1981) and Woody Allen's Another Woman (1988) - before her untimely death in 1992.

Some of England's top actors signed on to support Dennis and McKellen in Thank You All Very Much. Eleanor Bron is best known as Dudley Moore's love object in Bedazzled (1967) and Joanna Lumley's mother on the cult TV series Absolutely Fabulous (1992-96). Along with starring in the hit miniseries The Jewel in the Crown (1984), Rachel Kempson is best known as the wife of Sir Michael Redgrave and mother of Lynne and Vanessa Redgrave. And Margaret Tyzack, who won a Tony of her own for co-starring with Maggie Smith in Peter Shaffer's Lettice and Lovage, also played the governess in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992-93). Indian-born director Waris Hussein made his film directing debut with Thank You All Very Much after notable successes in television, where he directed several early adventures for Dr. Who (1963). He would continue primarily as a television director, helming the popular miniseries Edward and Mrs. Simpson (1980) and the telemovie Life of the Party: The Pamela Harriman Story (1998), starring Ann-Margret. He reached U.S. theatrical screens again in 1993 with a BBC telefilm, The Summer House, starring Jeanne Moreau, Joan Plowright and Julie Walters.

Director: Waris Hussein
Producer: Max J. Rosenberg, Milton Subotsky
Screenplay: Margaret Drabble
Based on DrabbleåÀs Novel The Millstone
Cinematography: Peter Suschitzky
Art Direction: Tony Curtis
Music: Michael Dress
Principal Cast: Sandy Dennis (Rosamund Stacey), Ian McKellen (George), Eleanor Bron (Lydia), John Standing (Roger), Rachel Kempson (Sister Harvey), Margaret Tyzack (Sister Bennett). C-103m.

by Frank Miller