Derek Jacobi is an acclaimed British actor with a long resume of roles on the stage, film, and television.
In 1963, at the age of 25, while still relatively unknown, Jacobi was invited by Laurence Olivier to become a founding member of Britain’s National Theatre. He soon appeared as Laertes opposite Peter O’Toole in “Hamlet” at the Old Vic Theater.
I know Derek Jacobi best from his starring role in the BBC series “I, Claudius” (1976), where he portrayed the Roman emperor across 70+ years. Due to a childhood illness, Claudius walked with a limp and spoke with a stammer, which is probably why he lived to such a long age, unlike other Roman emperors. Jacobi was superb and won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor for his performance.
“I knew I was gay very early on, although it wasn’t called gay back then. I knew that I wasn’t into girls in the way that I should be. I dated girls, and we sat in the back row of the cinema, and I did all that I was supposed to do, but I wasn’t enjoying it. I confessed to my mother while I was at university, and she very typically and sweetly said: ‘All boys go through this stage.’”
Jacobi met his lifelong friend Ian McKellen when they were students at Cambridge. But the two did not come out to each other at the time. In a recent interview, McKellen admitted he had a crush on Jacobi and explained why he didn’t come out at the time.
“Yes, I did fancy Derek, but I didn’t act on it. God, no. It was illegal. Remember… No gay bars, no gay newspaper, nothing. What there was was a bit sleazy, I suspect. One of the reasons I became an actor was that you could meet gay people. Even then, everything was difficult. When you went to America, they asked, “Are you now, or have you ever been, homosexual?” I lied on the form. It was a different world.”
After being friends for years, McKellen and Jacobi finally worked together in the 2013 sitcom “Vicious”. They played a bitchy gay couple commenting about each other, their friends, a the world around them.
In 1978, Derek Jacobi began performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he met Richard Clifford, a director there. They soon developed both a theatrical and personal partnership.
Despite his mother’s prediction, Jacobi never grew out of being gay. In March 2006, after 27 years together, Jacobi and Clifford formally registered their partnership. The couple is still going strong in 2025.
