Actor Chevy Chase a once-loved, huge comedy star of the 1980s whose career sank under the weight of his addiction issues and reputation for rudeness is featured in a documentary made with his blessing titled I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not.
Which just goes to show that the lack of self-awareness which damaged his standing is much as it ever was.
He was born 8 October 1943 8.19 am Manhattan, New York, and tells of an abusive upbringing in a much-remarried, upper class family. He was a member of the original SNL (Saturday Night Live) cast and appeared alongside John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. He went on to star in some of the most successful comedy films of the 1980s – Caddyshack, National Lampoon’s Vacation, Spies Like Us, Three Amigos! His career dwindled in the 1990s with a series of flops, though he had a revival as Pierce Hawthorne in the NBC Community (2009–2014).
What comes across in the documentary is that he is the architect of his own misfortunes, prickly and unapologetic. During the Covid pandemic he suffered heart failure and was placed in an induced coma for eight days.
What is striking about his chart is a surfeit of emotionally detached Air and more than that his magnified Pluto conjunct his Midheaven which is the driving planet in a Kite, opposition a 4th house Aquarius Moon, in an Air Grand Trine to Uranus in his 8th trine Neptune Sun in Libra in his 12th. A 10th house Pluto especially one as enhanced as this can be influential but it has Pluto’s controlling and contemptuous streak. He would always be trying to be one up on everyone he met, largely because of inner feelings of inadequacy which he could never admit, maybe even to himself. He also has a lucky, self-assured and possibly arrogant 10th house Jupiter in Leo sitting as the focal point of a mini Grand Trine of Sun trine an 8th house Mars (conjunct Saturn) in Gemini.
His Mars Saturn would certain point to possible ill treatment from childhood leaving him with a short fuse and an underlying reservoir of anger that would erupt erratically. An 8th house Mars and Uranus hints at intergenerational issues which he has probably never felt motivated to tackle.
The combination of a locked-and-loaded Pluto of considerable proportions plus unconscious 8th house anger would get in the way of his development. Although Pluto is supposedly the planet of transformation, it can block change when strongly represented in a chart, since it hates letting go control. Transformation requires dismantling old structures, reducing the past to ashes and then rebuilding.
What strikes me as interesting is when his decline started in the 1990s he was well into a phase where there had been opportunities for acquiring self-knowledge. Tr Pluto moving into his 1st house from the mid 1980s for many years is one of the most useful, if used correctly, since it bring self knowledge and the opportunity to transform oneself. Tr Saturn had also been moving through his 1st quadrant since the early 1980s which is also a time when inner reflection and stepping back from outer ambition can lead to helpful insights about developing potential to bring fulfilment in the years ahead. Ego-centric types find it difficult since it threatens to strip away outer defences as well as a desperately-needed admiring audience to allow for inner growth.
Instead of taking the celestial hint, he stagnated and went on a downhill spiral. It’s sad – well sad for anyone – but he had the capability of taking the lead with a Leo North Node in his 10th and he seems to have blown it.