Peter Sellers renowned for his comic skills in the “Pink Panther” series, as well as “The Mouse that Roared“, “Dr. Strangelove” and most notably in Being There is admired in a recent biography. Though reviews suggest it skips over what a monster he was in reality. He married four times; had four children, including one illegitimate daughter he never met. Once during a marital fight, he tried to kill a puppy. Haunted by death he took drugs to enhance sex and abused his friends, even writing his children out of his will. In the industry he was known as impossibly difficult and “basically not a nice man.”
He was born 8 September 1925 6am (memory) Southsea, England, the only child of variety-show troupers and grew up in theatrical boarding houses. He was close to his overbearing mother. He started in vaudeville, and moved into variety shows, radio The Goon Show and into the movies.
John Mortimer once described him as “a man who stood empty, waiting to be inhabited by other people”. Which he played to perfection in Being There as Chauncey Gardiner, a simple gardener who copies behaviour glimpsed on television screens.
His Sun Mars in Virgo (like Dorothy Parker) sat at one angle of a Half Grand Sextile with a pushily confident Jupiter in Capricorn opposition Pluto, sextile/trine Saturn in Scorpio. Talented, arrogant, stubborn, sharp-tongued. His Taurus Moon was square a 12th house Neptune Mercury, trine his Sun Mars and on one leg of a yod sextile Uranus inconjunct Venus – he’d be indulgent, stubborn, addictive-prone, escapist, head-in-the-clouds, evasive.
He had a second yod onto a defiant, lawless Uranus in his 7th house of relationships inconjunct Neptune sextile Venus – consistency and commitment were never his strong point. Though such a Uranus can have the capacity to act as a catalyst because of its intolerance of convention and tendency to cause disruptions. He had planets in all three Water signs and all three Earth signs – too wide for Grand Trines but still giving him a balance of creative and practical energy.
Sellers always sticks in mind from a comment in an astrology book about harmonics about his 13H chart. 13 in numerology is ascribed to breakthrough genius – which would mirror his Uranus on a yod – but is also associated with not having a strong sense of identity. His 13H has a Sun, Moon, Saturn conjunction square Jupiter – essentially depressed but given to highs as well. There was also a Pluto Uranus opposition Midheaven square Mars combining his disruptive streak with more than a touch of cruelty.
The post Peter Sellers – another Sun Mars in Virgo first appeared on Astroinform with Marjorie Orr – Star4cast.
