My first post in a series reviewing classic novels I forgot to read in college.

Irish sex worker Jack Saul was BOTD in 1857. Born Johannes Saul in Dublin, he grew up in poverty, and little is known of his early life. When he was 17, Saul met and had an affair with Martin Kirwa…

English actress Elsa Lanchester was BOTD in 1902. Born Elsa Sullivan in London to unmarried Socialist parents, she studied dance in Paris as a child with Isadora Duncan. After World War One, she be…

Irish painter Francis Bacon was BOTD in 1908. Born in Dublin to an upper-class family, he was a shy, effeminate child, and frequently brutalised by his father, and had his first sexual experiences …

American singer-songwriter Frank Ocean was BOTD in 1987. Born in Long Beach, California, he was raised in New Orleans by his mother after his parents’ divorce. He enrolled at the University of New …

Dutch scholar and theologian Desiderius Erasmus was BOTD in 1466. Born in Rotterdam, the illegitimate son of a Catholic priest, he was educated in monastic schools, and later joined the Order of St…

American athlete, television star and public figure Caitlin Jenner was BOTD in 1949. Born Bruce Jenner in Mount Kisco, New York, she studied at Graceland College in Iowa on an athletic scholarship …

American singer and pianist Andy Bey was BOTD in 1939. Born in Newark, New Jersey to a working-class African-American family, he was a child prodigy, teaching himself to play the piano, and began s…

American costume designer Edith Head was BOTD in 1897. Born in San Bernadino, California, she studied at the University of California and Stanford University, and worked as a language teacher befor…

English poet Andrew McMillan was BOTD in 1988. Born in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, his father is the poet Ian McMillan. He studied at the University of Lancaster and at University College London, wr…

English writer and murderer Juliet Hulme, latterly known as Anne Perry, was BOTD in 1938. Born in London, she suffered from tuberculosis as a child and was sent to South Africa to improve her healt…

American journalist and activist Anna Dickinson was BOTD in 1842. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to a Quaker family, she began campaigning for the abolition of slavery in her early teens, publi…

English writer Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh, better known as Evelyn Waugh, was BOTD in 1903. Born in London to a middle-class family, he was educated at Oxford University, where he had affairs with…

English writer and critic Adam Mars-Jones was BOTD in 1954. Born in London to a middle-class family, he studied at Cambridge University. His first collection of stories, Lantern Lecture, was publis…

Puerto Rican-American actress Holly Woodlawn was BOTD in 1946. Born in Juana Díaz, Puerto Rico, her family emigrated to the United States when she was a child, and she was raised in Miami. Assigned…

American theatre critic Ben Brantley was BOTD in 1954. Born in Durham, North Carolina, he studied at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, beginning his journalistic career at The Village Voice. He w…

English aristocrat, socialite and sculptor Anne Seymour Damer was BOTD in 1748. Born in Sevenoaks, Kent to an aristocratic family, she was the cousin and god-daughter of politician and writer (and …

Australian writer Christos Tsioklas was BOTD in 1965. Born in Melbourne to Greek immigrant parents, he was the first of his family to attend university, where he edited the influential student news…

Canadian celebrity consort, philanthropist and filmmaker David Furnish was BOTD in 1962. Born in Toronto to a wealthy middle-class family, he studied business at the University of Western Ontario, …

American singer-songwriter Katy Perry was BOTD in 1984. Born in Santa Barbara, California to a Christian Pentecostal family, she began singing as a child, performing in her parents’ church mi…

American fashion designer Zac Posen was BOTD in 1980. Born in New York CIty to a middle-class Jewish family, he stole yarmulkes from his family synagogue as a child to make ball dresses for dolls. …

English singer-songwriter and visual artist Anohni was BOTD in 1971. Born Antony Hegarty in Chichester, West Sussex, she was assigned male at birth, identifying as transgender from early childhood.…

German writer August Graf von Platen-Hallermünde was BOTD in 1796. Born in Bavaria to an impoverished aristocratic family, he had a series of unrequited crushes on male friends in his teens. In 181…

English gangster and murderer Ronald (Ronnie) Kray was BOTD in 1933. Born in London’s East End, he and his identical twin Reggie became amateur boxers in their teens. Called up for National Service…

American composer, lyricist and director Moss Hart was BOTD in 1904. Born in New York City, he was introduced to theatre by his aunt Kate, working as an assistant for theatrical producer Augustus P…

English actress Sybil Thorndike was BOTD in 1882. Born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, the daughter of an Anglican vicar, she showed an early interest in music, training as a classical pianist at th…

Irish writer Emma Donoghue was BOTD in 1969. Born in Dublin to a middle class family, she studied at Trinity College Dublin and latterly at Cambridge University, where she met her life partner Chri…

American composer and memoirist Ned Rorem was BOTD in 1923. Born in Richmond, Indiana, he was raised in Chicago, studying at Northwestern University before winning a scholarship to the Curtis Insti…

English artist Maggi Hambling was BOTD in 1945. Born in Suffolk, she studied art in her teens, graduating from the Slade School of Art in 1969. While predominantly a painter, she turned to sculptur…

French actress and producer Sarah Bernhardt was BOTD in 1844. Born in Paris, the illegitimate daughter of a Dutch courtesan, she received a convent education, and was sponsored to attend the Conser…

American actress Jean Acker was BOTD in 1892. Born Harriet Ackers in Trenton, New Jersey, her parents divorced when she was a child, and she was raised by her father and stepmother on a farm in Lew…

American writer Augusten Burroughs was BOTD in 1956. Born Christopher Robison in Pittsburgh, he had a turbulent childhood, moving between various homes until his parents divorced when he was 12. Hi…

Welsh painter and lithographer Count Albert de Belleroche was BOTD in 1864. Born in Swansea, the son of the Marquis de Belleroche, he inherited his father’s title aged three following his fat…

French actress Catherine Deneuve was BOTD in 1943. Born Catherine Fabienne Dorléac in Paris to an acting family, she made her first film appearance at 12. She became an international star in Jacque…

English actor Derek Jacobi was BOTD in 1938. Born in Essex, he developed an early interest in acting, starred in an Edinburgh Fringe Festival production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in his teens. …

American designer and writer Todd Oldham was BOTD in 1961. Born in Corpus Christi, Texas to a middle-class family, he had an itinerant childhood, due to his father’s job as a computer enginee…

English actress and model Saffron Burrows was BOTD in 1972. Born in North London to middle-class Socialists, she studied acting in her teens, and began modelling at 15, living between London and Pa…

American painter Robert Rauschenberg was BOTD in 1925. Born in Port Arthur, Texas, he briefly studied pharmacology before being drafted into the US Army during World War Two. After the war, he stud…

American composer and lyricist Marc Shaiman was BOTD in 1959. Born in Newark, New Jersey, he left school at 16 to pursue a career in theatre. He became a writer for Saturday Night Live and worked w…

English aristocrat and writer Lord Alfred Douglas was BOTD in 1870. The younger son of the Marquess of Queensbury, he studied at Oxford University, disappointing his father by writing poetry, editi…

American filmmaker and screenwriter Bill Condon was BOTD in 1955. Born in New York City to a working-class Irish-American family, he studied at Columbia University. After graduating, he worked as a…

American actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson was BOTD in 1975. Born in Missoula, Montana and raised in New Mexico, he joined a theatre troupe in his teens, moving to New York City to study at the American M…

French monarch King Louis XIV was BOTD in 1638. Born in Fontainebleau, the son of King Louis XIII, he became king aged four after his father’s death with a regency council ruling on his behal…

American actor Leonard Frey was BOTD in 1938. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City, he studied acting with Sanford Meisner at New York City’s Neighbourhood Playhouse. He made his Broadway deb…

English writer Mary Renault was BOTD in 1905. Born Eileen Mary Challans in London, she studied English at Oxford University, where her tutor J. R. R. Tolkien encourage her to write historical ficti…

French writer, dramatist, actor and philosopher Antonin Artaud was BOTD in 1896. Born and raised in Marseilles, he was an intelligent but troubled student, and spent much of his adolescence in psyc…

Russian photographer Baron George Hoyningen-Huene was BOTD in 1900. Born in St Petersburg in the Russian Empire to a prominent military family of Baltic German origin, they fled to England in 1917 …