American composer, lyricist and director Moss Hart was BOTD in 1904. Born in New York City, he was introduced to theatre by his aunt Kate, working as an assistant for theatrical producer Augustus Pitou in his teens. After a decade of directing summer entertainments at East Coast vacation resorts, he scored a hit with the 1929 play Once in a Lifetime, co-scripted with George S. Kaufman. He and Kaufman had further success with the play You Can’t Take it With You, winning the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and successfully filmed by Frank Capra; The Man Who Came to Dinner, starring Gordon Merrick, with whom he had a brief affair; and the musical play Lady in the Dark, which he also directed. Hart also worked with many of the great songwriters of Broadway, including Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart (no relation), Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin. Lured to Hollywood in the 1940s, he wrote a number of queer-coded screenplays, notably Gentleman’s Agreement, based on Laura Z. Hobson‘s novel about a journalist posing as a Jew to research anti-semitism; the musical biopic Hans Christian Andersen starring bisexual actor Danny Kaye (who comments, meaningfully “You’d be surprised how many kings are only a queen with a moustache”) and George Cukor‘s 1954 remake of A Star is Born starring Judy Garland. His greatest success came in 1956, directing the original Broadway production of Lerner & Loewe‘s musical My Fair Lady. A box office juggernaut, it won Tony Awards for best musical and for his direction. His 1959 memoir Act One was adapted for film, with George Hamilton portraying Hart as a happy married family man. Hart struggled with his homosexuality for much of his life, undergoing psychotherapy and shock treatment to cure himself of his attraction to men. He had affairs with fellow closet cases Lester Swayed, Charles Lederer and Gore Schary, before marrying actress-socialite Kitty Carlisle, with whom he had two children. He died in 1961, aged 57, shortly after his last Broadway success, directing Lerner & Loewe’s musical Camelot. Carlisle has since suppressed publication of Hart’s diaries and restricted access to materials evidencing his relationships with men.