Ken Dodd – a surreal, hyper-active and melancholy clown

 

 

Ken Dodd, the zany, buck-toothed Liverpudlian comedian with a feather tickle stick in hand, has died.

“The last standing true vaudevillian – a force of nature, a whirlwind, an ambulant torrent of surreal invention, physical and verbal, whose Liverpudlian cheek masked the melancholy of an authentic clown.”

“A typical Dodd routine was finely balanced on the borderline between sanity and madness.”

“The whole experience was like plunging down a waterfall in a barrel, swept away on the tide of his boundless energy.

Born 8 November 1927 in Knotty Ash, he continued living in the house he had been born in; engaged to one partner for 22 years until she died of cancer, and then forty years with his next, whom he married two days before his death. He did move from theatre to television with success but his career was blighted by a court case where he was accused of cheating the Inland Revenue, during which he admitted to multiple off-shore bank accounts and one third of a million pounds in cash stored in his attic. He was acquitted after a five-week trial, after fellow showbiz types attested to his tireless free charity work. Though he had to pony up a hefty amount to HMRC. He was always seen as a tortured soul inside, who couldn’t separate from his parents.

He was a Sun Scorpio conjunct Mars and Mercury trine Pluto in Cancer and trine Jupiter Uranus in Pisces – so excessively private with Scorpio planets plus a Water Grand Trine. His Moon was probably in early Taurus or late Aries, maybe opposition Mars. His Venus in hard-working Virgo was opposition Uranus Jupiter, which would give him changeable emotions and perhaps a fear of abandonment.

It isn’t as hard a chart as Jimmy Savile’s, though shares certain common elements with a Scorpio Sun in hard aspect to Mars and a Water Grand Trine.

5 thoughts on “Ken Dodd – a surreal, hyper-active and melancholy clown

  1. What a strange set up with the long, LONG, term engagements! Concerned about parting with his money if a marriage failed or dealing with some profound psychological issues? Three / four 29 degree planets interesting too.

    • It’s a good case for the moon being in late Aries, leaving a chart with no earth. The fact that he surrounded himself with physical cash, his bank account not containing so much.
      At his tax evasion trial, he said:
      “I am not mean, but I am nervous of money, nervous of having it, nervous of not having it” and described money as “important only because I have nothing else”.

Leave a Comment

%d bloggers like this: