Charlton Heston (October 4, 1923 – April 5, 2008)

I’ve written about Charlton Heston before, but didn’t go into his birth chart. I wonder why?

Again, this time of birth is considered ‘excellent’. That Part of Fortune/Neptune conjunction (@ 19° Leo) in the 10th House must be where his acting career comes from. Goodness knows he’s been lucky.

Venus Inconjunct Uranus

You feel mixed up about whether you want to be close to others or be free. When you are really close to a loved one, you feel smothered and want to get away by yourself to do what you want. But when you are alone and free to do what you want, you miss your loved ones and want to be with them. It will take you several years to understand yourself enough so that you can strike a balance between these two needs, so be patient.

Your uncertainty about love and freedom will be even greater if one of your parents doesn’t seem to really love you steadily, if you feel you cannot count on that parent when you need help. This would make you feel that love is somehow unreliable, that you cannot depend on anyone who loves you. As a result, you won’t permit anyone to depend on you either.

This belief may make you irresponsible in relationships, so that you won’t fulfill people’s expectations even when you have agreed to do so. Don’t promise love that you cannot deliver. While you are young this is not a great problem, but when you are older, you will hurt your partner in a relationship by not being dependable or by not being honest about your dependability. You may tell yourself that you want a steady love relationship, but then go after someone whom you know intuitively will not be reliable. But if you are honest about your need for freedom, this will not happen.

(Interestingly, I have this same inconjunct aspect although it is slightly wider than 3° in my chart. Obviously, he chose Lydia as his ‘one and only’ love while still young: theirs was an enduring marriage.)

Scots Heritage on His Mother’s Side

Would you believe he is descended from the Fraser clan? (Echoes of “Outlander” here…)

The clan motto is in ancient Norman French: Je suis prest — “I am ready” — a good motto for an actor (or a medieval Scots chieftain, for that matter).

(Scots tend to thrive in any climate, century, or circumstance, but the Fraser best known in history was Simon, the Twelfth Baron. After the bloody Scottish defeat supporting Bonnie Prince Charlie at the battle of Culloden in 1745, he avoided capture by the English so cleverly and so often that he earned the nickname “Simon the Fox.” Snared at last, he was thrown in the Tower of London and condemned to death as a traitor. On his way to the block, a woman in the jeering crowd taunted him, “They’ll cut yer ugly head off now, ye filthy Scots dog!”

“Aye, so they wull, ye bluddy English bitch,” he retorted equably. And so they did. He was the last nobleman executed in Britain, and the last man beheaded in that country. Dubious distinctions, but there they are. We take our family memories where we find them.)

In the Area (page 16)

This was when (1998) I started to question my hero’s real agenda. I’m a pacifist. I don’t believe anyone needs to own firearms. It’s not the Wild West anymore. But he stood on that podium and declared this motto. OK. Time to let him go, I said to myself.

Within 10 years he was dead. My hero was finally laid to rest.

(He’s still my hero.)