American actor Clifton Webb was BOTD in 1889. Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, he and his mother moved to New York City when he was a child, where he was drilled for a stage career. He became a professional ballroom dancer in his teens, and began appearing in musicals on Broadway. After making a successful Hollywood debut in 1925’s New Toys, he returned to Broadway to star in Irving Berlin’s Easter Parade and Ira & George Gershwin’s Treasure Girl, memorably performing the Gershwins’ hit song I’ve Got a Crush on You. A longtime friend of notorious homosexual Noël Coward, he appeared alongside Coward in his comedies Blithe Spirit and Present Laughter. He is best known as the suave, acid-tongued villain Waldo Lydecker in Otto Preminger’s 1944 film noir Laura, earning him an Oscar nomination and a contract with 20th Century Fox. He continued played evil queens throughout the 1940s in The Dark Corner, a successful adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham‘s novel The Razor’s Edge, and Sitting Pretty. He moved into heavier dramatic roles in the 1950s, starring with Barbara Stanwyck in Titanic, and headlining Three Coins in the Fountain and Woman’s World. Discreetly gay and apparently celibate, he lived with his mother until her death aged 91, prompting Coward to remark “It must be terrible to be orphaned at 71”. He died in 1966, aged 76.