Welsh actor Stanley Baker was BOTD in 1928. Born in Ferndale, Glamorganshire, his father was a miner who lost his leg in a work-related accident. Determined to avoid a similar fate, Baker took up amateur boxing and acting. At 14, he was spotted by a talent scout, and appeared in the 1943 war film Undercover. In 1944, he made his stage debut in Emlyn Williams‘ play The Druid’s Rest, alongside the young Richard Burton. Baker joined the Birmingham Repertory Company for three years, before completing his national service with the Royal Army Service Corps. After the war, he moved to London to pursue his acting career, appearing in Terence Rattigan‘s play Adventure Story. While on an American tour of Christopher Fry’s play A Sleep of Prisoners, he hustled his way into the 1951 film The Cruel Sea, kickstarting his film career. He appeared in Laurence Olivier‘s film of Richard III, and reunited with Burton in Alexander the Great. He ascended to leading man status in the thriller Hell Drivers and the World War Two drama The Guns of Navarone, becoming well-known for his tough and ruggedly masculine screen presence. In 1964, he produced and co-starred in the historical war epic Zulu, alongside Michael Caine and Sean Connery, which became a box office hit. Less wisely, he turned down the role of James Bond in Dr No, which later made a star of Connery. He was cast against type in Joseph Losey‘s love triangle drama Eva, co-starring Jean Moreau, and as an academic in Accident, alongside his Navarone co-star Dirk Bogarde. He also had success as co-producer of the heist film The Italian Job, starring Caine and gay royalty Noël Coward. In later years, he appeared frequently on Welsh television, including the 1965 documentary Return to the Rhondda, and a popular adaptation of How Green Was My Valley. Baker married actress Ellen Martin in 1950, with whom he had four children. He is thought to have had an affair with the Argentinian novelist Manuel Puig. In later life, he had a series of health scares as a result of his alcoholism and heavy smoking, and also struggled with gambling addiction. He was awarded a knighthood in 1976, dying later that year aged 58.