American drag performer and comedian Gene Malin was BOTD in 1908. Born Victor Eugene James Malinovsky in Brooklyn, New York to Polish-Lithuanian parents, he dreamed of a showbiz career from an early age. By his teens, he was performing as a chorus boy in Broadway musical shows, and won a drag contest at a Greenwich Village ball for his appearance as renegade Ziegfeld Follies showgirl Imogene Wilson. In 1930, he became the headline act at Club Abbey in Manhattan, appearing as a flamboyant effeminate gay man in a tuxedo. Described as “a six-foot-tall, 200-pound bruiser who also had an attitude and a lisp”, he attracted celebrity fans including Ginger Rogers and Tallulah Bankhead, was profiled in Vanity Fair magazine, and is credited with inspiring a “pansy craze” in nightclub acts across America. In 1932, he took his act to Los Angeles, performing at the Ship Café in Venice Beach. He befriended gay actor William Haines who introduced him to Hollywood inner circles, while his lesbian friend Patsy Kelly acted as his escort/beard at social events. Malin’s celebrity quickly spread, with newspaper reports often mentioning his “close friend” Jimmy Forlenza. Sadly, Malin’s arrival in Hollywood coincided with Los Angeles police crackdowns on gay bars and film studios cleaning up “immoral” screen content to comply with the Catholic Church’s Legion of Decency. In 1933, Malin appeared as a Mae West impersonator in the 1933 film Arizona to Broadway. He also filmed scenes for the comedies Double Harness and Dancing Lady, which were excised by RKO Pictures executives. Studio president B. B. Kahane was reported as saying “I do not think we ought to have this man on the lot on any picture—shorts or features.” Malin married showgirl Lucille Heiman in 1932, possibly in an attempt to butch up and retain a film career, ending in divorce a year later. In 1933, Malin accidentally drove his car into Venice Pier while driving home from a nightclub performance. His fellow passengers Forlenza and Kelly survived the accident, but Malin was killed instantly. He was 25. Largely forgotten in Hollywood history, Malin’s life and legacy was revived in the 1990s by gay historians George Chauncey and William J. Mann.