Antony Sher, hailed as one of the greatest stage performers of his time, after an early rejection by RADA who told him to try a different a career, has died. He is best known for his ‘venomous, spider-like Richard III, scuttling about the stage on crutches’ which won him an Olivier, his Fool in Lear and on film as Disraeli in Mrs Brown.
He was born 14 June 1949 in Cape Town (no birth time sadly) and even in later years always felt like an outsider as Jewish, gay and South African. His talents stretched beyond the stage and screen. He wrote several well-received novels, memoirs and a few plays, was an accomplished and caricaturist. In his autobiography he write: “I felt I’d been born on the moon, not just in the wrong country, but on the wrong planet. I just didn’t seem to fit in to that very macho, rugby-playing, extrovert, outdoor-living South African society.”
He and his long-term partner Gregory Doran, the RSC Director, became one of the first gay couples to enter into a civil partnership in the UK in 2005 and were married in 2015.
He was a Sun Gemini with probably an Aquarius Moon. His Sun is just conjunct Uranus giving him a life out of the ordinary and the lack of integration of his Sun with the rest of the planets suggests an aloof, island-unto-himself type of personality.
His Mercury in Gemini, a key instrument for an actor, was conjunct Mars and square Saturn as well as trine Neptune and sextile Pluto, so was well stitched into his chart and making him well able to turn his anger, aggravation and sharp tongue to good use.
He also had a Yod of Saturn in hard-working Virgo sextile Uranus inconjunct Jupiter in Aquarius (and maybe Moon). Such a focal point Jupiter would give him the ability to have a strong effect on wide swathes of people and for all his outsider paranoia he would have a strong streak of self-confidence allowing him to take on monumental Shakespearean roles.
His creative 5th harmonic was powerfully aspected and even more so his actor’s 15H – and both indicate a leaning towards the darker side of life. His 13H, harmonic of exploration and genius, was also marked with an edgy Mars sextile Saturn inconjunct a super-confident Jupiter Pluto conjunction.
A curious mix of neurotic uncertainty and supreme self-assurance.
What a great legacy – delivering an eternal performance just s few short years before his final exit.
In Brooklyn, no less.
I rectified his chart to 8:48:18 pm with Asc 4Aquarius26. Natal Sun conj Uranus in 5th House. Sun rules 7th, partner while Uranus rules his Aquarian Ascendant.
Neptune elevated in 9th gives acting. Natal Venus, ruler 10th career, plays, playwright, in 6th of work.
His last Solar Return, had Uranus conjunct the Ascendant and Neptune, ruler 8th death, conj the MH.
Moon in 12th, ruled 12th House cusp of Cancer….both indicating a cancer illness.
I saw him as King Lear with The Royal Shakespeare Company in 2018, in Brooklyn NY of all places!
The audience was in tears it was so moving watching the descent into madness, even though everyone must have already known the plot.
I’ve certainly never cried in a theatre before. Just outstanding.