German actor Udo Kier was BOTD in 1944. Born in Cologne during World War Two, the hospital where he was born was bombed by Allied Forces, and he and his mother had to be dug out of the rubble. Raised by his mother, he moved to London aged 18 to learn English. He began his film career in the 1966 film Road to St Tropez, gravitating towards European horror films and thrillers. After meeting filmmaker Paul Morrissey on a plane, he was cast in the camp horror films Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula, directed by Morrissey and produced by Andy Warhol. With his piercing green eyes, angular features and air of serene depravity, he became a noted character actor in European films, appearing in the erotic film The Story of O, Dario Argento’s horror classic Suspiria, and in Reiner Werner Fassbinder‘s Lola, Lili Marleen and Berlin Alexanderplatz. In 1987, he appeared in Lars von Trier’s film Epidemic, becoming one of von Trier’s most frequent collaborators. He became better known to international audiences in Gus Van Sant‘s 1991 film My Own Private Idaho, and appeared in Madonna’s music video Erotica and erotic coffee table book Sex. An extremely strange Hollywood career followed, with cameos in the Jim Carrey comedy Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Johnny Mnemonic with Keanu Reeves, Barb Wire with Pamela Anderson and superhero action film Blade with Wesley Snipes. A go-to character actor for independent film directors, he made vivid cameos in von Triers’ Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, Dogville and Manderlay and Melancholia, Wim Wenders’ The End of Violence, the speculative F. W. Murnau biopic Shadow of the Vampire and Werner Herzog’s My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? In 2021, he had a rare starring role in the American indie film Swan Song, playing an elderly gay hairdresser who escapes his retirement home to attend a client’s funeral. Kier lived in Palm Springs, California with his long-term partner, the artist Delbert McBride, and continued making films until his death in 2025, aged 81.