American actor Sean Hayes was BOTD in 1970. Born in Evergreen Park, Illinois, he and his siblings were raised by their mother after his father left the family home. He studied piano performance at Illinois State University, leaving before graduation to become the musical director of a repertory theatre. He moved to Los Angeles in 1995 to pursue a career as a comedian and actor, making his screen debut in the 1998 gay romantic comedy Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss. He is best known for his role in Will and Grace, a TV sitcom created by Max Mutchnik and David Kohan about a buttoned-up gay lawyer (played by Erik McCormack) who lives with his straight best friend Grace (Debra Messing). Hayes played comic sidekick Jack McFarland, a flamboyantly gay and frequently out-of-work actor, who frequently sparred with drag-queenish alpha male Karen (Megan Mullally). A ratings hit, the show became the first American TV series featuring gay characters, and was credited with improving the public perception of LGBTQ people. Other critics were less impressed, criticising Hayes and the show’s writers for peddling tired gay stereotypes and avoiding any hint of Will’s or Jack’s sexuality. The show made Hayes internationally famous, winning him an Emmy and four Screen Actors Guild Awards, and he remained for all eight seasons until the show’s closure in 2006. Post-Jack, he appeared in a 2008 Broadway revival of the musical Damn Yankees, hosted the Tony Awards in 2010, and made sporadic appearances in independent films. In 2017, he joined the reboot of Will & Grace, which ran for three further seasons until, perhaps thankfully, being cancelled in 2020. Hayes refused to discuss his sexuality during his Will and Grace years, finally coming out in a 2010 interview with The Advocate, in which he defensively claimed he’d never hidden his true self. In 2023, he returned to Broadway to star in Doug Wright‘s play Good Night, Oscar, winning a Tony Award for his role as bipolar musician Oscar Levant, and appearing in the successful London transfer. Hayes married his partner of eight years Scott Icenogle in 2014, with whom he runs a TV production company, co-producing the series Hot in Cleveland, Grimm and Hollywood Game Night.