English actor and comedian Kenneth Williams was BOTD in 1926. Born and raised in London, he was apprenticed to a mapmaker before being drafted into the Army during World War Two. After the war, he stayed in the Combined Services Entertainment Unit, putting on revue shows alongside future director John Schlesinger. He began his professional career in repertory theatre, aspiring to become a dramatic actor. His unintentionally comic performance as the Dauphin in St Joan was spotted by comedian Tony Hancock, who invited him to join the radio comedy show Hancock’s Half Hour. He rose to fame in the 1950s in the popular radio comedies Beyond our Ken and Round the Horne, typically playing camp characters with frequent sexual innuendos. Many of his jokes used vocabulary from Polari, an underground British gay slang. He appeared in theatrical comedy revues through the 1950s, including Share My Lettuce, Pieces of Eight and One Over the Eight, making him a West End star. He is best known for his appearances in the Carry On films, a series of execrable but hugely popular sex comedies, featuring camp stereotypes, flying brassieres, fart jokes and double entendres. As his career faded in the 1970s, he appeared on British quiz shows and the talk show circuit, and provided voices for children’s programmes Jackanory and Willo the Wisp. Despite his camp persona, Williams never came out in his lifetime and appears to have had no romantic relationships, living in adjoining flats with his mother for most of his adult life. He befriended Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, holidaying with them in Morocco (though not partaking in sex with local boys). He died of a barbiturates overdose in 1988, aged 62, which was probably suicide. A compulsive diarist since his teens, his final diary entry read “Oh, what’s the bloody point?”. His diaries, published posthumously, revealed his career dissatisfaction and profound loneliness. He was played by Michael Sheen in the 2006 television biopic Fantabulosa!