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.
Quite a lot of people used to think Chaplin was Jewish, or of Jewish descent. I never heard that he was descended from the Roma. So that is new to me. But I believe that his mother was very mentally unstable and inclined to sleep around. So that there was doubt that her husband was the father to Chaplin and his brother. Which may or may not be true. As the biography that I read never once mentioned the Roma connection.
However the author was quite explicit on his preferences for very young women and girls. But Hollywood seemed and still seems to be full of them.
It’s not much of a chart for thoughtfulness and empathy. Even the Uranus in Libra promoting a me-attitude.
CC had a penchant too for deflower young girls what a creep.
Thanks Marjorie – I read a review of this film today, and was wondering about him – so very talented and so damaged and complicated. But then, how many charismatic people come from stable backgrounds?
I’d also wondered about his English Romani roots, which his son Michael was researching some years ago – a project his granddaughters seem to have taken further. If the date is more or less right, then Chaplin’s Saturn in Leo square Mars will have been energised by recent transits. I’d guess he kept his Romani family links private and hidden from the general public, considering what happened to Roma during WW2, and also the general perception of what it means to be Romani. Actors Michael Caine and the late Bob Hoskins similarly have those family roots.
Chaplin’s daughter Victoria (19 May 1951) is a Sun/Mars in Taurus trine Saturn, Michael has that difficult Saturn conjunct Mars in Cancer, continuing the Saturn/Mars theme. I’ve seen Victoria perform amazing acrobatic feats in the rather surreal Cirque Invisible that she ran with her French husband.
Sean Connery once told me he thought one of his grandfathers was a ‘tinker’ which is Scots for an Irish traveller. Not connected to the Roma but similar. It always stuck in my mind as being connected to his 8th house Neptune.
Chaplin’s time and date are iffy but two out of the three kids have 8th house planets so there may be a stronger line back to antecedents than usual.
What a glamorous story Marjorie! Very enjoyable to contemplate that nugget. It’s curious about the 8th house Neptune, and other 8th house placements and our ancestors. I’ll look out for that, as I’m very interested in those patterns and possibilities.
There’s a child in our wider family who is startlingly like his grandfather, yet never knew him in life. Living relatives don’t have that man’s particular talents or quirks, yet they’ve reappeared physically and mentally in this child since around the age of two. We’re more connected to our ancestors than we know I think, something ancient societies and cultures seem to have realised and respected.
Years ago I looked at a chart of someone with 8th house planets from a seemingly ordinary family but with a sibling with mental instability and clearly something going on that was not obvious. After a great deal of prodding about grandparents, it turned out they had been killed in the Armenian genocide which had never been talked about in the family.
Why one child should be more open to the past than other siblings isn’t clear but in some families, one is directly plugged into the ancestors.
I knew someone else with Mars Uranus in the 8th whose grandfather had been a violent revolutionary. It does echo down the line.
Dear Marjorie, I hope you’re well.
Well Done for putting Charlie Chaplin in the spotlight !
His fixed T square Moon – Saturn – Mars was melancholy personified in his brilliant portrayal of the under-dog and the Tramp. By turning his afflictions into strengths he rose above others. His Jupiter may have been his life-belt (?) helping him not only to survive his impoverished childhood but to give him luck in his investments later on – when millions lost everything in the Great Depression. As to his birth-time, do you reckon that Jupiter may have been in his 2nd House perhaps?
Hi, Marjorie. Would astrology reflect anything about Chaplin’s Romani roots which two of his granddaughters have apparently explored in a 2021 film: http://www.romea.cz/en/news/world/charlie-chaplin-apos-s-granddaughters-making-documentary-film-about-his-romani-heritage#:~:text=Charlie%20Chaplin's%20granddaughters%20making%20documentary%20film%20about%20his%20Romani%20heritage,-26.4.2021%206&text=In%20his%20autobiography%2C%20Chaplin%20himself,April%201889%20in%20London%2C%20England.