Birthday Twins: April 23
Cats: Icons, birthday twins|
Shirley Temple (80)
Sun: Taurus
Ascendent: Sagittarius
Moon: Gemini
More of today’s birthday twins at dlisted
The planets have aligned well for the deubt entry of this blog. This first ever post just happens to be for my original personal hero, Shirley Temple. Shirley totally rocks it! The original child star, she makes all the derivative Curly Sue’s out there pale in comparison. Nowadays, the mere thought of child actors makes most adults shudder at the thought of saccharine overload, but Shirley was actually cool, someone you wouldn’t mind chilling with on a Saturday afternoon. It isn’t too difficult to suspend disbelief and accept that a jolly band of bachelor aviators would like nothing better than to spend their one day off serenading the young lass with sugar and song.
Now to the astrology: First off, Shirley has a jam-packed fifth house. The fifth house rules childhood and children as well as the arts and joy. This stellium of five planets (Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, the Sun, and Chiron) forms a trine to Neptune, the ruler of film and cinema. To say she has screen presence and incredible charm, especially during her younger years, is an understatement. The Sun in Taurus in the 5th house lends itself to vocal ability, and her 3 planets in Aries (Venus, Jupiter and Mercury) in the house of creativity instill her with an innate ability to express herself with charm through dance and movement.
Now all this charisma could be incredibly cloying, and what saves Shirley is her Gemini Moon, infusing her with a sense of self-aware sardonic wit and sassy coquetry.
All these qualities are showcased in the below clip with the legendary Bill Bojangles Robinson, the godfather of tap. I am not a big fan of tip tap, as it has become annoying in the same way as mimes are, but in its original form it was kind of cool. At her young age, you can see Shirley has an incredibly intuitive sense of how to move - the kind that can’t be taught - and never upstages but complements her dance partner, who is one of the greats. The 5th house sense of pure joy also shines through. Her Gemini sense of humour comes through in her facial expressions. If you have ever been subjected to a child’s dance recital, you can really appreciate how talented she was. Her Saturn retrograde in her first house took her onto bigger and better things as an adult, in roles in public service and as an ambassador. Sociologists say that Shirley was a driving factor in what got America through the darkness of the Great Depression; she is getting up there in age and it’s kind of lame she has never received one of those Oscars life time achievement awards. So I am starting an official write-in campaign! Vote for Shirley!
