The legendary Kirk Douglas, one of the old-style Hollywood stars, and father to Michael has died aged 103. He was renowned as difficult to work with and admitted to having anger issues, the legacy of a poor childhood with an aggressive alcoholic father, a Russian-Jewish immigrant rag peddler, but he was also liberally-inclined. He helped dissolve the blacklist against communist writers in the late 1950s, by hiring the non-grata Dalton Trumbo to rewrite the Spartacus script and giving him an on-screen credit, rather than the noms de plumes he’d recently become accustomed to.
Born 9 December 1916 10.15 am New York, he was a Sun Sagittarius in a lucky, confident trine to Jupiter in Aries, sextiling onto a maverick Uranus in his 1st house. His restless Gemini Moon opposed his Sun and fell in his performing 5th house. His Venus squared Uranus and he had Neptune Saturn on his Descendant so committed fidelity wasn’t his style and he had endless affairs through both of his marriages. He also notably had a do-or-die-determined and ruthless Mars in Capricorn opposition Pluto.
That last aspect clashed badly with his son Michael, 25 September 1944 10.30 am New Brunswick, New Jersey, who is a Sun Neptune in Libra square Saturn opposition a Capricorn Moon. He would experience his father with suspicion, creative certainly, but also exacting and critical as well as evasive. And scary to boot since that Mars Pluto is volcanic when it lets rip. Although they made up in the end there was a long and fractious period when there was major strain between them. Their relationship chart is a classic of love and hate with a composite affectionate Sun Venus and a resentful, hostile Mars trine Saturn Pluto.
His second wife Anne to whom he was married for sixty five years said she accepted his affairs since she was more European though it was an odd match. Born 23 August 1919 in Germany, she had a stalwart and stubborn Sun Mars in Taurus on the focal point of a T Square to an Aquarius Moon opposition Neptune; with her Sun Mars sextile a super-confident Jupiter Pluto in Cancer. She was a strong, enduring personality who was clearly able to live with his wandering ways for the benefits the match brought. Their relationship chart had a needs-space Sun conjunct Uranus but it also opposed an affectionate Venus and squared onto an expansive and lucky Jupiter. Though it wouldn’t be easy at times with a composite Mars trine Pluto.