American drag artist, costume designer and photographer Frederick Kovert was BOTD in 1901. Born Frederick Cover in Pennsylvania, little is known about his early life. During the 1920s, he became well-known as a female impersonator, celebrated for his Peacock Dance. He appeared in drag in silent films throughout the 1920s, starting with An Adventuress alongside fellow drag artist Julian Eltinge. In 1925, he designed the costumes for a silent version of The Wizard Oz, appearing as the Phantom of the Basket. The birth of talking pictures and the imposition of the Hays Code made it more difficult for him to find film roles, and he made his final appearance in 1931’s The College Vamp. During the 1930s, he opened his own photography studio, Kovert of Hollywood, creating nude portraits of well-oiled muscular men. Unlike earlier pornographers like Wilhelm von Gloeden, Kovert discarded the pretence of Greco-Roman settings and poses, photographing his subjects in more natural settings, and showing tattoos and body hair (though still liberally applying baby oil. He attracted a number of apprentices, including Frank Mizer, who set up the Physique Pictorial magazine in 1945. Kovert’s work made him a target for the Los Angeles Police Department vice squad, who raided his studio in In 1945. He pled guilty to possession of obscene materials, though the details of his sentencing remain unclear. Depressed at the destruction of his business and his inability to make a living, he committed suicide in 1949, aged 48.