




Charlie Chaplin, the Little Tramp, sometimes the Great Dictator, with the questionable sex life, is the focus of yet another film. The Real Charlie Chaplin sets out to lay bare his private life, with four of his children with his final wife Oona O’Neill sharing their experiences of him.
Born probably 16 April 1889 with an unregistered birth in London, he started life in dire poverty and the workhouse, vaudevilled his way to the US to become ultimately the inventor of cinema, celebrity and modernity. His success made him a target of the red-scare conspiracists in power in the American 1940s/50s and he eventually upped sticks for Switzerland where he remained with his fourth wife Oona O’Neill.
He is alleged to have slept with over 2,000 women, and had a penchant for underage girls.
His son Michael says in the documentary: ‘I was kind of frightened of my father. He was so powerful, you couldn’t argue with him, because he couldn’t be wrong.’
Assuming his birth date is about accurate, he had a late Aries Sun with with a high-enthusiasm, not always sensitive, passionate Venus Mars in Taurus. This he shares with Adolf Hitler born four days later. In Chaplin’s case, his Mars Venus opposed an intense Scorpio Moon squaring onto wannabe-important Saturn in Leo. He didn’t share easily, for sure. His Sun was in a maverick opposition to Uranus. If his birth time is accurate, then his Uranus fell in his creative 12th and even more significantly his Neptune Pluto in Gemini, the emblem of his generation, fell in is 8th – as was also the case with Hitler and Winston Churchill. Both Pluto and Neptune in the 8th have an ability to project an aura out into the zeitgeist for the few who can utilise the energy. Though it does not make for an easy temperament or contentment.
Oona O’Neill, his fourth and final wife who was 18 when he married her and 36 years younger than him, was born 14 May 1925, and was a Sun Taurus which sat close to his Venus Mars for a firecracker attraction. Her Venus in Taurus was conjunct his Neptune Pluto as well so she’d be drawn like a moth to a flame by the image and the power he projected. Though her creative/neurotic and obsessional Aquarius Moon opposition Neptune square Saturn in Scorpio clashed uncomfortably with his Scorpio Moon and Venus Mars and Saturn so it was not an easy match.
Michael Chaplin, 6 March 1946 10.25 pm Santa Monica, CA, did find his father scary and tricky with his Pisces Sun and Venus square Uranus and trine a Saturn Mars conjunction so the relationship would feel unfair.
Geraldine Chaplin, 31 July 1944 11.14 pm Santa Monica, also experienced their childhood home as a tense, potentially dread-filled place with a controlling-father Sun Pluto in Leo in her 4th.
Josephine Chaplin, 28 March 1949 12.10 am Santa Monica, has her Aries Sun conjunct Mars Venus in Aries on one side and trine an 8th house Pluto on the other – trapped by heated emotional undercurrents.
Creative talent and the ability to change the world does not go along with a peaceful, harmonious family life or a balanced temperament.