English actor, director and writer Simon Callow was BOTD in 1949. Born in London, he was brought up by his mother after his father left the family home. After three years living in Northern Rhodesia, he and his mother returned to Britain when he was a teenager. He studied briefly at Queens University in Belfast, returning to London to study at the Drama Centre. He began his professional career working in the box office of the Royal National Theatre, after writing a fan letter to artistic director Laurence Olivier. After performing in fringe theatre, he rose to fame playing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the National Theatre’s premiere of Peter Shaffer‘s play Amadeus. A critical and box office hit, it transferred successfully to the West End and earned Callow an Olivier Award nomination. He lost the role to Tim Curry in the play’s 1980 Broadway transfer, and again to Tom Hulce in the 1984 film adaptation, though appeared in the film in a supporting role. He became one of England’s most popular character actors, working fluidly in stage, television, radio and film, admired for his sonorous voice, immaculate diction and fruity delivery of Shakespearean dialogue. His is best known for his appearances in Merchant–Ivory‘s E. M. Forster adaptations A Room With a View, Maurice and Howard’s End, and as Gareth, the cheerfully libidinous gay Scotsman of rom-com Four Weddings and a Funeral, which brought him global recognition. He has written and performed a one-man show about Charles Dickens, and developed a successful career as a theatre and opera director. In 1991, he wrote and directed a film adaptation of Carson McCullers‘ Southern Gothic novella The Ballad of the Sad Café, which was critically praised but failed to find an audience. He has also written biographies of Oscar Wilde, Charles Laughton, Orson Welles and Richard Wagner. Openly gay since forever, he married his partner Sebastian Fox in 2016.