American actress Barbara Stanwyck was BOTD in 1907. Born in Brooklyn, New York, she was orphaned at the age of four, and endured a turbulent childhood, shuffled between relatives and a series of foster homes. She left school at 14, and is thought to have had an illegal abortion at 15, leaving her unable to have children. She made her professional debut as a chorus girl with the Ziegfeld Follies, becoming a Broadway star in the 1927 play Burlesque. Lured to Los Angeles in 1929, she became one of the most popular and highest-paid stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Admired for her striking physicality and the naturalism and psychological depth of her performances, she moved easily between comedy and drama, with notable hits including the weepie Stella Dallas and the screwball comedy The Lady Eve. Her role as an amoral confidence trickster in 1944 film noir Double Indemnity established her as a femme fatale for the ages, and became her signature role. The fierce energy and unsentimentality of her onscreen persona earned her a devoted queer fanbase, but made her increasingly redundant in the folksy conservatism of post-war Hollywood. Her career declined into a series of poorly-made crime thrillers, and she eventually abandoned Hollywood, hosting a short-lived TV variety show in 1960. She made an intriguing comeback in 1962’s Walk on the Wild Side, playing a domineering lesbian brothel madam, thought to be one of Hollywood’s first openly lesbian characters. In 1982, she was awarded an Honorary Oscar, launching a late-life comeback. She co-starred with Richard Chamberlain in the schlocky but phenomenally successful 1983 TV mini-series The Thorn Birds, and appeared in the short-lived 1985 Dynasty spin-off series The Colbys. Married and divorced twice, Stanwyck had a number of affairs with her male co-stars. Tallulah Bankhead claimed that she and Stanwyck had been lovers, and she is also thought to have had an affair with Joan Crawford. Biographers have also speculated that Stanwyck was in a relationship with Helen Ferguson, her friend and publicist of 30 years. A committed Republican and libertarian, she was best friends with Nancy and Ronald Reagan and a prominent fan of writer Ayn Rand. She died in 1990, aged 82.