French actor and filmmaker Pierre Clémenti was BOTD in 1942. Born in Paris to a Corsican mother and an unknown father, he had a difficult childhood, spending time in a reform school, and working variously as a telegram delivery boy, hotel bellman and stonecutter. Spotted in the streets of Paris by a theatre director, he was invited to take part in a play, discovering a talent for acting. In 1960, he made his screen debut in Yves Allegret’s Chien de Pique. His big break came two years later, playing Burt Lancaster’s son in Luchino Visconti’s historical drama The Leopard. His sexual magnetism, androgynous beauty and aid of danger made him an overnight star, and he went on to work with most of the auteurs of 1960s European cinema. His notable roles included Catherine Deneuve’s macho gangster boyfriend in Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour; a 17 year-old attempting to lose his virginity in Michel Deville’s Benjamin; a cannibal in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Porcile (Pigsty); the prophet Tiresias in Liliana Cavani’s The Cannibals; and a long-haired child molester in Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist. A radical on and offscreen, he embraced Marxist politics, and made a series of politically-themed short films. He famously turned down a role in Federico Fellini’s Satyricon, refusing to take part in the director’s industrial-level production. His career imploded in 1971 when he was arrested in Italy on drug possession offences and imprisoned without trial for 18 months. Eventually released for lack of evidence, he described his harrowing experience in prison in his memoir A Few Personal Messages. After his release from prison in 1973, he appeared in Dusan Makavejev’s Sweet Movie, and played a bisexual jazz musician in an adaptation of Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf. Unable to revive his film career, he worked mainly in theatre, directing the feature films New-Old, Soleil and À l’ombre de la canaille bleue. By the 1990s, he had lost his looks and was described as “a broken dandy”, though he made he made cameo appearances in James Ivory’s Quartet, Jacques Rivette’s Le Pont du Nord, James Toback’s thriller Exposed, Pierre Granier-Deferre’s L’Autrichienne and Gillies MacKinnon’s Hideous Kinky. Married twice and with two children, he died of liver cancer in 2000, aged 57. He earns Honorary SuperGay Status for embodying sexual ambiguity and playing gay convincingly before it was fashionable.