Charlie Chaplin

Some souls arrive to make the whole world laugh through its tears, and Charlie Chaplin was one of them. His Sun sits in Aries, the pioneer-warrior, an ace position that made him a starter and a leader among leaders, the man who rose again no matter what the universe threw at him. And it threw a great deal: a London childhood of poverty, a workhouse before he was nine, a mother committed to an asylum. Yet that Aries fire got him up on the saddle every time. With his Sun in the sixth house, the realm of work and daily craft, he shone through sheer labour, the famous perfectionist who wrote, directed, scored and starred, spending years honing a single picture until it was flawless.

His Moon in Scorpio, rising in the first house, gave him the phoenix soul beneath the comedy: an emotional volcano composed on the surface, feelings worn right under the skin. From that depth came the Tramp, slapstick braided with genuine pathos. Founding United Artists in 1919, making The Kid, The Gold Rush, City Lights, Modern Times and his defiant The Great Dictator, he transformed suffering into art, dying and being reborn on screen again and again.