English actor George Sanders was BOTD in 1906. Born in St Petersburg, Russia to English parents, he spent his childhood in Russia, until his family returned to England after the outbreak of the Russian Revolution. He worked variously in a textile mill, a tobacco planation and an advertising agency, until his secretary (and aspiring actress) Greer Garson suggested he take up acting. He began appearing in plays in London, and co-starred in the 1936 film Lloyds of London opposite Tyrone Power. Sanders’ role as an elegant but heartless villain created a sensation, leading to further work in British and Hollywood films. He played charismatic villains in Alfred Hitchcock‘s adaptation of Daphne du Maurier‘s novel Rebecca and the 1945 film of Oscar Wilde‘s The Picture of Dorian Gray, and developed a wider mainstream audience as adventurer-detective Simon Templar in The Saint movie series. He won an Oscar in 1950 for his role as Addison de Witt in All About Eve, a witty, queer-coded theatre critic who acts as the film’s narrator, detective and villain. His later work included Ivanhoe with Elizabeth Taylor, the musical film Call Me Madam with Ethel Merman, and a rare “straight role” as an unhappy husband in Viaggio in Italia (Journey to Italy) with Ingrid Bergman. In later life, he starred in the sci-fi horror film Village of the Damned and voiced the tiger Shere Khan in the animated Jungle Book film. His final film The Kremlin Letter featured him playing the piano in drag in a gay bar. Sanders was married four times, including to sisters Zsa Zsa and Magda Gabor, who both testified to his heterosexuality. After a series of family and health crises, he died of an overdose of barbituates in 1972, aged 65. In his suicide note, he named boredom as the main reason for his death, a line worthy of his many arch, self-knowing characters. His sexuality continues to be debated by biographers and critics, while his performances have entered the queer canon of Evil Movie Queens.