The indomitable, ever cheerful Julie Andrews is still firing on all cylinders at 84 appearing in a Netflix Regency costume drama and just publishing the second volume of her autobiography, Home Work, co-written with her daughter, with the third in preparation. She was a child star on stage and then hit the big time in movies with Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music and hasn’t stopped for seven decades.
What’s all the more extraordinary is what else she packed into her life from a difficult childhood onwards. She came from a split family, helped her vaudeville mother cope with her stepfather’s alcoholism, travelled miles alone for her own theatrical engagements, looked after her younger half-brothers when her mother started drinking heavily and became the main breadwinner by her mid-teens. In adult life she continued to support her extended family. And in her second marriage to Blake Edwards she had to cope with his moody depression and prescription pill addiction, cope with his unstable ex-wife and his children as well as raise two adopted children and her daughter. All in the midst of a punishingly busy career. A throat operation in the late 1990s went tragically wrong and thereafter she couldn’t sing so now confines herself to speaking roles.
Born 1 October 1935 6am Walton-on-Thames, England, she has a bouncy first house Libra Sun giving her that cool, crisp and forceful persona, backed up by a lively Mars in Sagittarius in the 3rd. Her intense but never-letting-on-she’s-hurt Scorpio Moon is conjunct a lucky Jupiter, with Jupiter in a confident trine Pluto. And what gives her discipline and reflects the harsh conditions of her childhood is Saturn in Pisces opposition Venus in Virgo in the 12th (conjunct Neptune) and square Mars. She would feel unloved and lose herself in her creativity and helping others as well as staying exceptionally busy. A focal point Mutable Mars can be disorganised and scattered but a constantly changing career would soak up much of that.
Her Mercury in Scorpio opposes Uranus and squares onto Pluto – so there’s an intensity to the way in which she communicates and to a certain extent a fair amount of mental stress.
She’s not in her easiest times at the moment with a panicky Solar Arc Neptune conjunct her Mars and an accident-prone Solar Arc Mars conjunct her Saturn. But tr Pluto sextile her Jupiter for another year will help to keep her enthusiasm high.
Marjorie,
One important aspect you missed in Julie Andrews’ chart is the Sun on the focal point of a Yod with Saturn sextile Uranus as the legs.