Month: January 2021

Screen goddess Sophia Loren, one of the last true stars of the movies, has returned to the screen aged 86 in the Netflix The Life Ahead directed by her son Edoardo Ponti. Dispensing with any pretensions at glamour or likeability, she appears angry, defeated and cynical as Madame Rosa, a former sex worker and Holocaust survivor, who looks after the children of “working women”.

  Sophia’s life started in the unlikely beginnings of a Rome home for unmarried mothers. By the time she was eight, she, her mother and sister were starving, hiding from air raids in a rat-infested train tunnel, full of “sickness, laughter, drunkenness, death and childbirth”. Her mother was a beauty and Sophia started on the beauty pageant circuit at 15, moving into bit film parts until eventually she was discovered by Carlo Ponti, twenty years her senior, whom she eventually married, produced two children and stayed with throughout his life.

She says her most important teacher was Vittorio De Sica who directed her breakthrough film, The Gold of Naples in 1954 which started her 13-film collaboration with Marcello Mastroianni and, eventually, a career in Hollywood where she landed speaking no English.

  She was born 20 September 1934 2.10pm Rome, Italy and has a far-travelled 9^th house Virgo Sun with a lucky, successful Jupiter conjunct her Midheaven in a determined and confident square to a 7^th house Pluto. Her screen presence was never less than intense thanks to her Pluto and co-stars like Richard Burton remarked on her intelligence. Her Jupiter opposes a domestically-unsettled 4^th house Uranus squaring onto her Pluto – she would be controlling and secretive, but also able to push back boundaries.

  She has an Aquarius Moon conjunct Saturn opposition an 8^th house Mars in Leo – a hint of her hard beginnings and the lifelong obsession with poverty it left behind.  In addition to Mars she also has Venus and Neptune in the 8^th, giving her the film-star knack of projecting an aura.

  Carlo Ponti, 11 December 1912 1pm Magenta, Italy, also had successful Jupiter on his Midheaven, in his case in Sagittarius with, also like her, a packed 9^th house in his chart – good at communication and travel. His Moon Venus in Capricorn would connect with her Virgo Sun. His money-minded Saturn in Taurus was square her Moon which is less than ideal, though her Moon Saturn would be acclimatised to the cool, materialistic and workaholic Saturnine energies. Her Sun fell on his Descendant which is ideal for a relationship with her Jupiter in his 7^th as well.

  He was more of a behind-the-scenes support for her; though his Pluto in Gemini opposition Jupiter was trine/sextile her Midheaven so he’d be instrumental in making her career a success.

  Both children, Carlo a conductor, and Edoardo have prominent Jupiter in their charts making for gilded lives.

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The confected outrage over gender fluidity and pronouns has been well and truly skewered by the genuine article. Comedian Eddie Izzard, who came out 35 years ago as transvestite and more recently transgender, defended JK Rowling against accusations of being transphobic. “We need to look at the things she has written about in her blog. Women have been through such hell over history. Trans people have been invisible, too. I hate the idea we are fighting between ourselves.”

  Eddie was born 7 February 1962 7.30 pm (unverified) in Aden, Yemen, to English parents, and was brought up in Northern Ireland and Wales. He knew from aged four that he was transgender. “I’m gender fluid. Your brain gets coded male or female when you’re young. Mine got coded both ways. I have the gift of both, although it doesn’t feel like a gift at first.”

‘If [people] call me she and her, that’s great – or he and him, I don’t mind. I prefer to be called Eddie, that covers everything.”

 He cut his teeth as a street entertainer, ‘made burbling, conversational surrealism his stock in trade’ and hit fame in his thirties as a stand-up comic, often in drag, following in the Monty Python tradition – as Darth Vader in the Death Star canteen (“Give me penne all’arrabiata or you shall die!”), the thoughts of a busily munching squirrel (“Did I leave the gas on?”) or God as James Mason. ‘Izzard didn’t just riff off recognisable reference points but spun big existential questions into hallucinogenic gold.’

Now 58 he has stayed the course, has built a stage and screen acting career, sold out Madison Square Garden, was the first solo comedy act to play the Hollywood Bowl, did a long stint in Paris, performing in French, and has gigged in Germany, in German. He/she has also caught the headlines doing astonishing back-to-back marathon runs for charity, to be repeated this month on a treadmill. He’s a dedicated Labour activist and may go into politics.

   His/her chart has an astonishing six planets in Aquarius, a sign often associated with comedians –  Jimmy Tarbuck, Jimmy ‘Scnozzle’ Durante, Ned Sherrin, Michael Bentine, Barry Humphries, Les Dawson amongst others. In Aquarius he a disciplined, determined and sharp-witted Mars Saturn conjunction, as well as sunny, charming, chatty, lucky Mercury, Sun Jupiter and Venus. Neptune in Scorpio sits in square with Uranus as well as a leadership North Node across the zodiac in Leo. So incredibly Fixed and enduring.

  He/she probably has unaspected Pisces Moon which will tend to make his feminine impulses act erratically. On his artistic 5^th Harmonic the Moon is heavily aspected in opposition to Sun, Jupiter, Venus square Pluto Saturn (Mars) so through his creative work he can fully express his emotions and feminine side. His mother died when he was six of cancer.

  The other cross dressing though not transgender comedian Barry Humphries, the Australian Dame Edna Everage, was also a multiple Aquarius with Sun, Saturn and Venus in Aquarius with a Sun Saturn trine Jupiter.

Hilaria Baldwin, wife of Alec, being ‘outed’ as not-Spanish is a silly season twitterfuffle. Only in America where ethnicity is as carefully calibrated as caste in India, would it even have surfaced. A celebrity influencer sprinkling a little distinctive glitter on her bio to separate her out from the crowd is hardly pass remarkable. Though her sin appears to be taking away attention from proper Latinas and appropriating what isn’t hers.

  She was born in Boston on 6 January 1984, spent some holidays in Spain growing up, maybe more though she’s vague when pushed, and her parents now live on Mallorca. She is the mother of Baldwin’s five children, whose names are Spanish-influenced and she is multi-talented – teaches yoga, podcasts and writes, co-owns a chain of yoga studios, has penned fitness books and has a signature calming ointment to her name. 

  She’s a Sun Capricorn sextile Saturn in obsessively conscientious Scorpio. What probably draws her to the flamenco-vibe is her four planets in adventurous, far-travelled Sagittarius – Venus Uranus and a fantasy-prone Neptune Jupiter. She also has an ultra-determined Mars in late Libra conjunct Pluto which is sextile her head-in-the-clouds Jupiter Neptune Mercury. Her free-spirited, wild-child Gemini North Node opposes her Sagittarius planets. And she has a loves-to-shock Aquarius Moon.  

Alec Baldwin, born 3 April 1958, is an upfront Sun Aries with an excitable and uncompromising Mars in Aquarius opposition Uranus square Mercury opposition Neptune. His Venus in Aquarius resonates with her Moon; her Mars Pluto is conjunct his Jupiter; and her Venus in Sagittarius connects with his Aries Sun.  They are both high-octane personalities and both have strong Mercury Neptune aspects which will be no drawback in the showbusiness world of make believe.