Dorothy Parker, the original Queen of Mean, with acerbic one liners that went down in history, eventually ended up in Hollywood. A new biography which relates her later years shows her as a brilliant wit and wasted talent, as she never overcame her addiction to carousing and alcohol.
Behind the piercing wit she was sad, at times suicidal. But despite her best self-destructive efforts she lived to be 73. She was born 22 August 1893 at 9.50pm West End, New Jersey. Her mother died when she was four and she inherited a hated stepmother giving her a rebellious streak. Her convent school expelled her for announcing that “the Virgin Mary’s immaculate conception was likely a case of spontaneous combustion”. Her early career as a Vogue writer – “Brevity is the soul of lingerie, as the Petticoat said to the Chemise” saw her move smartly on to Vanity Fair as a savage theatre critic. Once in California she became politically engaged, helped establish the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League, and travelled to Spain to report on the civil war. Later the FBI put her under surveillance for suspected communist tendencies.
As her alcoholism took grip she ended up living in filth and eating raw bacon because she couldn’t be bothered to cook. Her second husband did his best to rescue her.
She had an extraordinary chart with a Sun Mars in Virgo in her performing 5th house, no doubt giving her the acerbic edge which brought her fame. Especially since that squared a Jupiter, Pluto, Neptune stellium in Gemini, which in turn was trine Venus and Saturn in Libra.
Her Uranus in Scorpio was in an outspoken square to her Mercury in Leo; and she had a yod of Uranus sextile a Capricorn Moon inconjunct Pluto Neptune.
That Neptune Pluto in Gemini did produce some singular talents but had a tendency to obsessiveness and was not entirely mentally stable.
Odd about living in filth, eating raw bacon with a Virgo Sun.
The post Dorothy Parker – a mean, sad Virgo first appeared on Astroinform with Marjorie Orr – Star4cast.
