Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann was BOTD in 1962. Born in Sydney, he grew up in the rural township of Herons Creek in New South Wales, where his parents ran a movie theatre and taught ballroom dancing. After his parents’ separation, he moved to Sydney to live with his mother, and became an actor, appearing in feature films and TV soap operas. He studied at the National Institute of Dramatic Art, where he met his future partner and regular collaborator Catherine Martin. After drama school, he became a theatre director, staging lavish productions for the Australian Opera Company, including a popular restaging of Puccini’s opera La bohéme. His 1992 debut feature film Strictly Ballroom, a satirical, dazzlingly sexy love story set in the world of suburban ballroom dancing competitions, became an international hit, kick-starting a global resurgence in ballroom dancing classes and TV dance competitions. Courted by Hollywood, he scored a further success with Romeo + Juliet, an adrenalised adaptation of Shakespeare‘s play set in the ganglands of modern-day Miami. A critical and box-office juggernaut, it vaulted its young actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes to stardom, and featured Harold Perrineau as a cross-dressing Mercutio. After a fallow period, he returned in 2001 with Moulin Rouge!, a musical romance set in Belle Époque Paris starring Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman, noted for its frenetic MTV-style editing and eccentric reworkings of pop songs by Elton John, David Bowie, Madonna, Marc Bolan, Patti LaBelle and Sting. Critically divisive but beloved by audiences, it was nominated for eight Oscars including Best Picture, winning for Martin’s production design and costume design. His follow-up film, the historical pastiche Australia, was a box-office flop, unleashing a fierce national debate about its historical accuracy. He returned in 2013 with The Great Gatsby, an operatic adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s novel starring DiCaprio. His 2022 film Elvis, a spirited biopic of the life and music of Elvis Presley starring Austin Butler, was also a success, earning eight Oscar nominations and multiple industry awards for Martin’s costume and production design and Butler’s lead performance. Luhrmann’s love of camp, kitsch and baroque excess has earned a devoted LGBTQ following, prompting considerable media speculation about his sexuality. He and Martin married in 1997 and have two children together. Luhrmann hinted in a 2024 interview that he and Martin have an open relationship, though he has yet to admit to visiting Gay Island. We at LGBT Headquarters hope for further confirmation in due course. His next project will be a biopic of cross-dressing warrior-saint Joan of Arc.