American actor Antonio Fargas was BOTD in 1946. Born in New York City to a Puerto Rican father and a Trinidadian mother, as one of eleven children, he was raised in Spanish Harlem. He made his screen debut when he was 14 with an uncredited role in Shirley Clarke’s 1964 film The Cool World, receiving his first screen credit for playing “The Arab” in the 1969 comedy Putney Swope. He had supporting roles in a number of Blaxploitation roles throughout the 1970s, including Pound, Shaft, Cleopatra Jones and Foxy Brown. In 1975, he became more widely known for his role as Huggy Bear, the streetwise bar owner and police informant in TV detective series Starsky & Hutch. He is best known to LGBTQ audiences for head-turning appearances as openly Black gay men in two comedies, both released in 1976. In Next Stop, Greenwich Village, he co-starred with Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum, Shelley Winters and Bill Murray as Bernstein, an openly gay actor and part-time hustler, whom Fargas based on Jason Holliday, the real-life subject of Clarke’s documentary Portrait of Jason. In Car Wash, he played cross-dressing “sophisticated sissy” Lindy, who responds to a homophobic colleague with the devastating and much-quoted line, “Honey, I’m more man than you’ll ever be and more woman than you’ll ever get.” Fargas later spoke about the resulting damage to his career for “playing gay”, though repeatedly expressed his pride at appearing in both films, citing the unhappy experiences of his gay brother as his motivation to represent Black queer characters onscreen. During the 1980s, he had a run of guest appearances in TV series The Love Boat, Charlie’s Angels, Miami Vice and MacGyver and a five-year recurring role on soap opera All My Children. Making something of a comeback in the 1990s, he appeared in the music videos for Backstreet Boys’ hit songs Everybody (Backstreet’s Back) and Larger than Life and had a cameo in TV sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. After relocating to England, he appeared in the TV reality series I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! and a stage revival of August Wilson’s play Ma Rainey‘s Black Bottom. Married twice and with four children, he earns Honorary SuperGay Status for his willingness to “play gay” long before it was fashionable, and for investing his queer characters with dignity, complexity and humour.