Sir Ian McKellan tells naked truth

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. — Whew! The big full-frontal nudity-in-"King Lear" mystery has been solved.

There won't be any. Not in the "Great Performances" production that's scheduled to air March 25 on PBS.

In other words, the noncontroversy has been solved just the way everyone expected it would when it popped up last summer.

Ian McKellen, who did the nude scene in the stage production of "Lear" that has been filmed for PBS, had obviously been briefed before he met TV critics.

"I thought this would come up," McKellen said when the same intrepid TV critic who tried to make an issue of this in July brought it up again at the January Television Critics Association press tour. "Let's have a good look at you."

Viewers won't get a good look at the nudity.

"It's clearly suggested," said executive producer David Horn. "It's obvious that he takes his clothes off, but it's not shown in its entirety."

"I think it's discreetly avoided, the moment in which Lear — not McKellen, but Lear — removes his clothes," said McKellen, who added that he thought the nudity was "often distracting" onstage.

"Inevitably, if a man or woman takes his clothes off onstage, the eyes are going to go to those parts that are normally hidden, and at that moment, there may be something of import which the scene is about is lost," he said. "If it's a distraction of that sort, it's not worth the trouble. But it's quite clear that Shakespeare intends Lear to, at least, start removing his clothes. Whether he does or does not do that completely, I think, is not resolved in the TV version."

And the actor, who turns 70 in May, admits he wasn't completely at ease during his nude scenes.

"Every night, when I take my clothes off, you know what I used to do? Pull in my stomach! That's pathetic," McKellan said. "I was playing an old man. I should have let it all hang out, and I couldn't do that."

UP ALL KNIGHT: McKellen was knighted by the queen in 1991, something he's proud of but doesn't take overly seriously.

"Well, it's a great honor when you're plucked out and given a medal," said McKellen, comparing it to "a pat on the back."