Extremely tender, ancient man, one playing Lear perhaps (9)
I believe the answer is:
tragedian
'one playing lear perhaps' is the definition.
(King Lear is a tragedy)
'extremely tender ancient man' is the wordplay.
'extremely' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters) (only the extremes of the word are used).
'ancient' becomes 'aged' (ancient can mean very aged).
'man' becomes 'ian' (man's name).
'tender' with its middle taken out is 'tr'.
'tr'+'aged'+'ian'='TRAGEDIAN'
(Other definitions for tragedian that I've seen before include "Egad, I rant about dramatic actor" , "Dramatist" , "A great din (anag) - actor" , "Egad, I rant about actor in sad drama" , "Serious actor" .)