American performer Barbette was BOTD in 1899. Born Vander Clyde Broadway in Round Rock, Texas, he became fascinated by the circus as a child, practising tight-walking for hours on his mother’s clothesline. He began his circus career as one half of aerialist team The Alfaretta Sisters, performing in female dress. He moved into vaudeville, renaming himself Barbette and performing trapeze and wire stunts, revealing himself as a man in the finale. In 1923, he performed in Paris, becoming the toast of the Moulin Rouge and the Folies Bergère, attracting celebrity admirers including Sergei Diaghilev and Josephine Baker. Among his fans and lovers was Jean Cocteau, who wrote an influential essay about Barbette as an exemplar of theatrical artifice. Cocteau also commissioned a series of photographs by Man Ray of Barbette’s performance and transformation into his female persona, later casting him in his experimental 1932 film Le Sang d’un poète (The Blood of a Poet). Barbette returned to the United States in 1935 to star in the Broadway circus musical Jumbo. He retired from performance due to injury in the 1940s, and became a director for the Ringling Brothers Circus. He also became a consultant on circus sequences in Hollywood films, including coaching Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis on impersonating women in the comedy Some Like It Hot. After years of ill health, he committed suicide in 1973, aged 74. He is thought to be the inspiration for the 1933 German film Viktor und Viktoria, remade as Victor/Victoria in 1982 starring Julie Andrews.