Canadian actor Walter Pidgeon was BOTD in 1897. Born in Saint John, New Brunswick, he studied law and drama at the University of New Brunswick before joining the Army during World War Two. After the war, he moved to New York where he worked briefly on Broadway, before moving to Los Angeles to pursue film acting. His career took off with the arrival of talkies, and he starred in a number of Technicolour musicals including Bride of the Regiment and Kiss Me Again. He transitioned to leading man status in the 1940s, scoring a significant hit in the Oscar-winning drama How Green Was My Valley, and starred with Greer Garson in the phenomenally successful melodramas Mrs Miniver and Madame Curie, earning Oscar nominations for both films. His career slowed in the 1950s, though he made vivid appearances in film noir The Bad and the Beautiful, adventure epic Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and the gay-themed political drama Advise and Consent. His last major film role, as Ziegfeld Follies impresario Florenz Ziegfeld in Funny Girl, paired him with Barbra Streisand. Pidgeon was married twice, having a daughter with his first wife. He died in 1984, aged 87. In his 2012 memoir, Hollywood hustler Scotty Bowers claimed that Pidgeon picked him up at a service station in 1946 and took him to a threesome with Hollywood milliner Jacques Potts, meeting him regularly over many years for sexual rendezvous.