Scottish actor John Fraser was BOTD in 1931. Born in Glasgow to a working-class family, he was raised by his aunt after his mother died and began acting in school, appearing in the BBC radio programme Children’s Hour. He made his professional acting debut in 1947, before joining the London Shakespeare Company. He landed his first major role in a television adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson‘s novel Kidnapped. His film work included The Dam Busters, Lord Alfred Douglas in The Trials of Oscar Wilde and the title role in a TV adaptation of Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. He was in contention to play T. E. Lawrence in the film Lawrence of Arabia – losing the role, according to his memoirs, after he refused the sexual advances of his agent. Other roles included El Cid, Repulsion, the Sherlock Holmes film A Study in Terror and the Isadora Duncan biopic Isadora. His career declined in the 1970s, and he became a playwright and novelist. In his 2004 memoir Close Up, he recounted seeking psychiatric treatment to cure his homosexuality before deciding to accept it, along with spicy anecdotes about his closeted gay friends Laurence Harvey, Rudolf Nureyev and Dirk Bogarde. Fraser was in a relationship for 27 years with painter Rod Pienaar. He died in 2020 aged 89.