Rowan Atkinson

Photo Mosaic

carries the patient, old-soul discipline of a Capricorn Sun, and it shows in everything he built. This is the sign that shines through career and reputation, the slow dependable climb to the top rung of the ladder, and his ascent was exactly that: from the sketch stage of Not the Nine O'Clock News, which won him a BAFTA in 1981, up through the crafted brilliance of Blackadder and the near-silent, globe-conquering Mr. Bean, and on to the Johnny English films. There is real Saturnian craftsmanship in his comedy, an actor who treats a raised eyebrow or a rubber-faced pause as a piece of engineering. Yet the spark inside that grounded frame is a Gemini Moon, the quick, mental, endlessly changeable luminary that finds its comfort in movement and in mischief. Mr. Bean is almost a Gemini Moon made flesh: childlike, wordless yet infinitely expressive, restless, forever improvising his way out of small disasters. The pairing is beautifully odd, a disciplined climber housing a playful trickster, and it produced a career of collaborations with Richard Curtis and Howard Goodall, an Olivier Award, and a CBE for services to drama and charity.