American playwright, screenwriter and director Robert Harling was BOTD in 1951. Born in Dothan, Alabama to a middle-class family, he was raised in Natchitoches, Louisiana, studying at Northwestern State University before attending Tulane University Law School. After graduating, he moved to New York City to pursue a (largely unsuccessful) acting career. He is best known for his play Steel Magnolias, a dramedy about the friendship between a group of women who patronise a local beauty salon. The character of Shelby, a young Southern Belle who dies of complications from diabetes, was based on Harling’s sister, who died in 1985. Originally produced Off-Broadway in 1987, the play transferred to Broadway, becoming a critical and commercial hit. Harling wrote the screenplay for the successful 1989 film version, making a star of the young Julia Roberts as Shelby. Harling went on to a successful career as a screenwriter, with film credits including Soapdish, The First Wives Club and Laws of Attraction. In 1996, he wrote and directed The Evening Star, a sequel to the Oscar-winning 1983 film Terms of Endearment, which was critically panned and a box office flop. After a fallow period, he returned in 2012 as the writer and producer of TV comedy series GCB (short for “Good Christian Bitches”), which was cancelled after its first season. Now apparently retired from showbiz, Harling continues to live in Natchitoches. Openly gay since forever, little is known about his personal life.