English actor John Hurt was BOTD in 1940. Born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire to a middle-class family, he studied art at Central St Martin’s in London before winning a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he rose to prominence on screen, debuting in the 1966 film A Man For All Seasons. He dazzled 1970s audiences as gay raconteur Quentin Crisp in the TV film The Naked Civil Servant, based on Crisp’s memoir. (Crisp praised Hurt’s performance, declaring him “my representative on earth”). Hurt followed this with an entertaining performance as Roman Emperor Caligula in the celebrated TV adaptation of I, Claudius. Short, unassuming and unkempt, with nicotine-stained teeth, Hurt seemed unlikely material for film stardom. His lack of Hollywood glamour, along with a mellifluous voice and an edgy charisma made him a highly-successful and scene-stealing character actor. His best-known film performances include a heroin addict in Midnight Express; the deformed circus attraction Joseph Merrick in David Lynch‘s The Elephant Man; a monster’s breeding pouch in Alien; the hapless Winston Smith in the 1984 film of George Orwell‘s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four; the effete osteopath Stephen Ward in Scandal, a biopic about the Profumo Affair; a fossilised intelligence chief in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; and a vampiric Christopher Marlowe in Only Lovers Left Alive. After a number of same-sex relationships in his youth (which he cheerfully admitted were “masturbatory”), he settled into heterosexuality, marrying four times and having two children. A tantalising sexual ambiguity lingered through most of his “straight” roles, and he was also adept at playing gay, reprising the role of Crisp for the TV film An Englishman in New York and dragging up as the Countess in Gus Van Sant’s (terrible) film of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. He had one of his finest roles in Richard Kwietniowski’s 1997 film of Gilbert Adair‘s novel Love and Death on Long Island, as a reclusive writer who becomes obsessed with a handsome soap opera actor. In later life, Hurt endeared himself to younger audiences as wand-maker Garrick Ollivander in the Harry Potter movie series. He died in 2017, aged 77.