American singer and pianist Michael Feinstein was BOTD in 1956. Born in Columbus Ohio, he studied piano as a child and moved to Los Angeles when he was 20, supporting himself by playing in piano bars. He worked for Ira Gershwin for six years, cataloguing and preserving his & George Gershwin’s unpublished sheet music and rare musical recordings. He is best known for his performances and recordings of the songs of the Gershwins, Cole Porter and Irving Berlin, winning a Drama Desk Award in 1988 and nominated five times for Grammy awards. Outed as gay in 1994 by gay magazine The Advocate, he settled into life as a New York Musical Theatre Gay, hosting a long-running cabaret show with guest stars including Liza Minnelli, Rosemary Clooney, Glen Campbell, Diahann Carroll, Barbara Cook and Cyndi Lauper. He is currently the Artistic Director for the Center for the Performing Arts in Indiana, where he heads the Great American Songbook Foundation. In 2008, he married his life partner Terrence Flannery in a ceremony presided over by Judge Judy. A longtime friend of Minnelli, he can often be seen on social media wheeling her out for impromptu cabaret performances.