English dancer and choreographer Wayne Sleep was BOTD in 1948. Born in Plymouth, Devon, he was raised in Hartlepool in County Durham. He showed an early talent for dance, taking jazz and tap lessons as a child, winning a scholarship in 1961 to the Royal Ballet School in London. At 157 cm (5 feet 2 inches), he was the shortest male dancer ever admitted to the school. Undeterred, he arabesqued his way to success, joining the English Royal Ballet in 1966 and becoming a senior principal dancer. Considered too short to dance in traditional ballet repertory pieces, he had original roles created for him by choreographers including Frederick Ashton, Kenneth MacMillan, Ninette de Valois, Rudolf Nureyev and Gillian Lynne. In 1973, he set a world record performing an entrechat-douze jump on British TV variety show Record Breakers. He continued his dance career well into his 40s, originating the role of Mr Mistoffelees in the 1981 London production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s mega-musical Cats. The following year, Lloyd Webber adapted his musical piece Variations into a dance piece for Sleep, performed as one-half of the musical Song and Dance. His screen appearances include the 1971 ballet film The Tales of Beatrix Potter, The Virgin Soldiers, The First Great Train Robbery and the 1998 Elizabeth the First biopic Elizabeth. He also choreographed a high-camp tango sequence for Angela Lansbury and David Niven in the 1978 mystery film Death on the Nile. He is perhaps best known for dancing to Billy Joel’s Uptown Girl with Diana Princess of Wales at the 1985 Royal Variety Performance, delighting everyone in the audience except Prince Charles. After retiring from professional dance, he became a stalwart of British reality television, appearing as a judge on the short-lived dance show Stepping Out and Big Ballet, a documentary about plus-sized ballet dancers. Openly gay since forever, he lives in London with his husband José TV.