Italian-American actress and model Isabella Rossellini was BOTD in 1952. Born in Rome, Italy, one of twin daughters born to Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and Italian filmmaker Roberto Rossellini, her childhood was marked by intense media attention on their parents, who had both left marriages to be together. Raised in Rome and Paris, she moved to New York City aged 19 to study at Finch College, later working as a translator and television reporter. In 1979, she married filmmaker Martin Scorsese after interviewing him for Italian television, appearing together in the film Il pap’occhio before separating three years later. After being photographed by Bruce Weber for British Vogue in 1980, she launched a successful modelling career, working with celebrity photographers Richard Avedon, Robert Mapplethorpe, Francesco Scavullo, Peter Lindbergh, Helmut Newton and Annie Leibowitz. In 1982, she became the face of French cosmetics brand Lancôme, significantly increasing her international profile. She made her English-language film debut in 1985’s White Nights, before transfixing audiences as masochistic nightclub singer Dorothy Vallens in Blue Velvet, directed by her then-boyfriend David Lynch. A critical and commercial sensation, the film won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Festival, establishing Rossellini as a fearless, risk-taking performer. Her eclectic film career included appearances in the plastic surgery comedy Death Becomes Her, the existential drama Fearless and the Beethoven biopic Immortal Beloved, alongside modelling nude in Madonna’s erotic coffee table book Sex and an amusing cameo in TV sitcom Friends. In 1996, she was fired by Lancôme for being “too old” (aged 43), prompting an international outcry about ageism in the cosmetics industry. Undaunted, she carved out an idiosyncratic screen career, working largely with independent and first-time filmmakers including Abel Ferrara, Campbell Scott, Peter Greenaway, James Gray, Guy Maddin and Alice Rohrwacher. In 2008, she launched Green Porno, a wonderfully bizarre YouTube series about the sex lives of animals, in which she dressed in a series of home-made animal costumes. Her rehiring by Lancôme in 2016 as their new brand ambassador, at the age of 63, was hailed as a victory for older women. In 2024, she received her first Oscar nomination for her role as a taciturn nun in the papal drama film Conclave. After her divorce from Scorsese, she was briefly married to Jon Wiedemann, with whom she had a daughter, and later adopted a son in 1993. The queerest of straights, she earns Honorary SuperGay status for the audacity and perversity of her career choices and her daring exploration of sexuality on and off-screen.