Kelly McGillis – out of the Hollywood machine

Kelly McGillis, Tom Cruise’s love interest in the original 1986 Top Gun has been refreshingly blunt about why she wasn’t invited in for the sequel. “I’m old and I’d fat,’ she said and added that she preferred feeling age-appropriate and secure in who she was.

Born 9 July 1957 3.47pm Burbank, California, she studied at Julliard and had her breakthrough in Witness with Harrison Ford; and was also notable in The Accused with Jodie Foster, in which she drew on her own experience of being raped by two men when she was in her mid-twenties. Her career had highs but was also episodic much like her love life. She was married had two children and then came out as gay some years ago. Now she teaches acting and says she’s much more content being out of the Hollywood hothouse.

She is a Sun in Cancer; with a sparkling Mars, Venus, Uranus in Leo in the 9th house trine Saturn in Sagittarius. I’d think she was quite intellectual. She also has an influential and controlling Pluto on her Midheaven trine a Sagittarius Moon, sextile Neptune. Her weight has always fluctuated leading to unkind media comments – her Moon square Jupiter wouldn’t help to curb her appetite and Pluto on her midheaven would make her feel more protected with extra weight.

But it’s also throwing a harsh light on Hollywood’s use and manipulation of female actresses. Oscar winner Viola Davis said in an interview: “If you are anywhere above a size 2, you’re not having sex. You don’t have sexual thoughts. You may not even have a vagina. And if you’re of a certain age, you’re off the table.”

Ellen Pompeo of Grey’s Anatomy and one of the highest-paid women in television, said she preferred financial power: “I’m not necessarily perceived as successful as a 24-year-old actress with a few big movies is, even though she’s probably being paid shit — certainly less than her male co-star and probably with no backend,” Pompeo said. “And they’re going to pimp her out until she’s 33 or 34 and then she’s out like yesterday’s trash, and then what does she have to take care of herself? These poor girls have no real money, and the studio is making a fortune and parading them like ponies on a red carpet.”