Argentinian writer Manuel Puig was BOTD in 1932. Born on a ranch in a small town in Buenos Aires Province, he had an unhappy childhood, bullied at at school for his effeminacy and love of wearing women’s clothes, and finding solace in the glamour of Hollywood film. Educated in Buenos Aires, he unsuccessfully pursued careers in film direction and architecture, eventually finding work as a film archivist and translator. His first novel La traición de Rita Hayworth (Betrayed by Rita Hayworth) published in 1968, explored the aggressively macho world of his childhood and the false promises of Hollywood film. Leaving conservative Perónist Argentina for Mexico, he published Boquitas pintadas (Little Painted Mouths) in 1969, published in English as Heartbreak Tango. His best-known novel, 1976’s El beso de la mujer araña (Kiss of the Spiderwoman), chronicled a gay transvestite window dresser sharing a prison cell with an aggressively straight political prisoner. Initially banned in Argentina, it became a surprise international hit following Hector Babenco’s 1985 English-language film starring William Hurt and Raúl Juliá . Puig loathed the film, quipping “La Hurt is so bad she probably will win an Oscar“. Sure enough, Hurt won Best Actor the following year, considered at the time a breakthrough for sympathetic portrayals of queer characters. A musical version followed, with music and lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb and a book by Terrence McNally, winning the 1993 Tony Award for Best Musical. (A film version of the musical, directed by Bill Condon, was released in 2025). Puig continued writing novels and screenplays throughout the 1980s with little success, and had a number of affairs, including with actors Yul Brynner and Stanley Baker. He died in 1990 aged 57. His official cause of death was given as cardiac arrest during gall bladder surgery. However, several of his close friends claimed that Puig died of an AIDS-related illness.