English writer and raconteur Quentin Crisp was BOTD in 1908. Born Denis Pratt in Sutton, Surrey to a middle-class family, he moved to London to study journalism at King’s College, dropping out to work as a rent boy in the red-light district of Soho. During World War Two, he attempted to join the British Army but was rejected for “sexual perversion”. Undeterred, he moved into a bedsit in Chelsea and lived openly as a queen, dyeing his hair red, painting his fingernails, dressing in billowing scarves and a fedora, speaking with an affected strangulated voice and eking out a living as an artist’s model. After years of obscurity and poverty, he experienced a mid-life career resurgence with the publication of his 1968 memoir, The Naked Civil Servant. Its 1975 TV serialisation, starring a fabulously swishy John Hurt, made Crisp an unlikely celebrity. He embarked on a new career as a performer and raconteur, until some unflattering comments about gay rights, AIDS and Princess Diana in 1981 sent him into exile in New York City. He worked as a film reviewer for Christopher Street magazine, becoming one of the few critics to express support for Paul Verhoeven’s much-reviled Showgirls, publishing his criticism and essays in the books Resident Aliens and How to Go to the Movies. His life in Manhattan inspired Sting’s 1987 song An Englishman in New York, with a music video featuring Crisp, helping resuscitate his public reputation. Interest in his life and work was also bolstered by Tim Fountain‘s 1989 biographical play Resident Alien starring Bette Bourne, which played successfully in London and New York. Crisp’s notable later performances included Queen Elizabeth I in Sally Potter’s 1992 film adaptation of Virginia Woolf‘s gender-bending novel Orlando, and an entertaining appearance in Rob Epstein‘s and Jeffrey Friedman‘s 1996 documentary The Celluloid Closet. Crisp published two further memoirs in the 1990s, admitting that he was more accurately described as transgender. He died in 1999, aged 91. Hurt reprised his performance as Crisp in the 2009 TV film An Englishman in New York, focusing on Crisp’s Manhattan years and friendship with performance artist Penny Sparkle.