American actress and comedian Jane Lynch was BOTD in 1960. Born in Dolton, Illinois, she studied theatre at Illinois State University and Cornell University. Returning to the Mid-West, she began her career with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company and the Second City comedy troupe in Chicago. After appearing in the 1993 action film The Fugitive, she moved to Hollywood, appearing in bit parts in TV sitcomes Married… with Children, 3rd Rock from the Sun and Frasier. She rose to fame in Christopher Guest’s 2000 mockumentary Best in Show, playing a ferociously competitive and twitchily lesbian dog trainer. She also appeared in Guest’s 2003 comedy A Mighty Wind, playing a porn actress turned folk singer and part-time witch, and For Your Consideration as a Leeza Gibbons-esque entertainment reporter. Admired for her acidic comic chops and improvisational skills, she appeared in The 40 Year Old Virgin (in a role originally written for a man) and played Dorothy Cousins in the Julia Child biopic Julie & Julia. In 2009, she became an international star in Ryan Murphy‘s high-school TV series Glee, playing the misanthropic, tracksuit-wearing and queer-coded gym coach Sue Sylvester. She remained with the series for all six seasons, winning Emmy and Golden Globe Awards for the role. After Glee‘s finale, she had a recurring role in TV series The Good Fight and won a second Emmy Award for the period comedy The Marvellous Mrs Maisel. She made her Broadway debut in a 2013 revival of the musical Annie, returning in 2022 to play Fanny Brice’s mother in the revival of Funny Girl. Openly gay since forever, her marriage to Lara Embry ended in divorce in 2014. She married long-term partner Jennifer Cheyne in 2021.