American filmmaker and writer Kenneth Anger was BOTD in 1927. Born in Santa Monica, California to a middle-class family, he claimed to have been a child actor in Max Reinhardt’s film A Midsummer Night’s Dream, one of many biographical anedotes which have since been disputed. He began making films in his teens, raising eyebrows with his 1947 short film Fireworks, a homoerotic fantasy involving a 20 year-old Anger being ravaged by a gang of gorgeous sailors. After several years in Europe, he returned to America in the 1950s, successfully defending an obscenity charge after a screening of Fireworks and releasing the short film Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, inspired by the occultist Aleister Crowley. His 1964 short film Scorpio Rising again attracted attention for its homoerotic imagery of leather daddies and evocative use of pop music. His 1970s works Invocation of My Demon Brother and Lucifer Rising featured many of his celebrity friends including Anaïs Nin, Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull and Jimmy Page. He is best known for his 1959 book Hollywood Babylon, a salacious collection of Hollywood scandals (many of them fabricated), written in memorably purple prose. Anger’s vision of Hollywood as a cesspit of depravity inspired a number of films, including The Black Dahlia and Babylon. The rise of film studies culture in the late 20th century led to renewed interest in Anger’s work. An enthusiastic self-promoter, he participated in retrospectives of his work. He also accused the Church of Scientology of blocking the publication of a third Hollywood Babylon volume, and cheerfully placed curses on his perceived enemies. His films have influenced filmmakers including Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, John Waters, Jack Smith and Bruce LaBruce. Anger died in 2023 at his home in California, aged 96.