Pavel Florensky, 1882-1937 (Russian Orthodox theologian)

* Pavel Florensky was a man of many talents: a Russian Orthodox theologian, priest, philosopher, mathematician, physicist, electrical engineer, inventor and Neomartyr.

In Moscow, on 26 February 1933, he was arrested on suspicion of engaging in a conspiracy to overthrow the state and restore with Nazi assistance a fascist monarchy. He defended himself vigorously against the imputations but was sentenced to ten years in the Labor Camps by the infamous Article 58 of Joseph Stalin's criminal code (clauses ten and eleven: "agitation against the Soviet system" and "publishing agitation materials against the Soviet system"). The published agitation materials were his monograph about the theory of relativity. His manner of continuing to wear priestly garb annoyed his employers. The state offered him numerous opportunities to go into exile in Paris, but he declined them.

He was imprisoned and eventually shot dead in St. Petersburg on the night of 8 December 1937 in a wood not far from the city.

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NATAL DATA and ASTROLOGY CHART

BIRTH DATA: Pavel Alexandrovich Florensky, 9 January 1882 OS, 19:00 (7pm) (-3.19), Yevlakh, Azerbaijan (40n37, 47e09). ASC: 23 Leo. RR: B (from autobiography). SOURCE: Sy Scholfield quotes him in "Souvenirs d'une enfance au Caucase" by Paul Florensky (L'AGE D'HOMME, 2007), p. 16: "Evlakh ... C'est donc là, en pleine steppe sauvage, que je suis né le 9 janvier 1882, le soir, vers sept heures, une heure que j'aime entre toutes."

Translation: Evlakh ... It was here, on the wild steppe, that I was born on 9 January 1882 in the evening about seven o'clock, the hour of the day that I love most of all.

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Gerre Hancock, 1934–2012 (American organist, improviser, composer)

* Gerre Hancock's compositions are published by Oxford University Press (OUP). His textbook, Improvising: How to Master the Art, also published by OUP, is studied by organists throughout the USA. In 1981 he was appointed a Fellow of the Royal School of Church Music and in 1995 was appointed a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists. In May 2004 he was awarded the Doctor of Divinity degree (Honoris causa) from The General Theological Seminary in New York. He is listed in “Who’s Who in America,” and his biography appears in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edition. In 2004 he was honored in a ceremony at Lambeth Palace in London where he was presented the Medal of the Cross of St. Augustine by the Archbishop of Canterbury. In June 2010, Dr. Hancock was presented the International Performer of the Year Award by the New York City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. This is viewed by many as the most distinguished award that the American Guild of Organists bestows upon its colleagues. 


Hancock has a stellium of Pisces planets ruled by Neptune in the 1st House. 

Jimmy Giuffre, 1921-2008 (American musician)

* Jimmy Giuffre was a jazz clarinet and saxophone player, composer and arranger. He is notable for his development of forms of jazz which allowed for free interplay between the musicians, anticipating forms of free improvisation. 

Free improvisation? How about Uranus on the Part of Fortune, and  Moon in Sagittarius ruling a Cancerian Ascendant?!

Jimmy Dean, 1928–2010 (American country music singer, television host, actor)

* Although he may be best known today as the creator of the Jimmy Dean sausage brand, he became a national television personality starting in 1957, rising to fame for his 1961 country crossover hit "Big Bad John" and his television series, The Jimmy Dean Show, which also gave puppeteer Jim Henson his first national media exposure. His acting career included a supporting role as Willard Whyte in the 1971 James Bond movie, Diamonds Are Forever. He lived near Richmond, Virginia, and was nominated for the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2010, although he was formally inducted posthumously.

Michael Brown (American producer and writer of songs and books)

* Michael Brown is most widely known for several children's storybooks he has written about Santa Mouse. Santa Mouse was originally printed in 1966 but since then it has been reprinted many times. In the stories, Santa Mouse becomes one of Santa's helpers. Brown has Jupiter and Saturn conjunct in Virgo, the sign of the helper. Brown has served several terms as a member of the board of the Songwriters Guild of America. 

Jerry Haynes, 1927–2011 (American actor, "Mr. Peppermint")

* Jerry Haynes is most well known as Mr. Peppermint, a role he played for 30 years as the host of one of the longest-running local children's shows in television, the Dallas-based Mr. Peppermint (1961–1969), which was retitled Peppermint Place for its second run (1975–1996). He also had a long career in local and regional theatre and appeared in more than 50 films. A 1944 graduate of Dallas' Woodrow Wilson High School, he was the father of musician and lead singer Gibby Haynes of the group Butthole Surfers. 

Haynes had a stellium of planets in peppermint-cool Aquarius, including the Sun, ruler of his Leo Ascendant. 

Buck Owens (American musician, singer, songwriter)

* Buck Owens had 21 No. 1 hits on the Billboard country music charts with his band the Buckaroos. They pioneered what came to be called the Bakersfield sound, a reference to Bakersfield, California, the city Owens called home and from which he drew inspiration for what he preferred to call American music.

Ed Steinbrecher quoted a letter from the county clerk for a birth time of 5 AM, but I have Owens's birth certificate on file clearly stating his time of birth as 5:15 AM. Owens had the Sun conjunct his Ascendant both in Leo.

Justin Bieber (Canadian pop musician, actor, singer-songwriter)

* In her 2012 autobiography, Pattie Mallette states that her son, Justin Bieber, was born "around one in the morning on Tuesday, March 1, 1994, at St. Joseph's Hospital in London, Ontario, Canada." The unsourced birth time of "12.56 a.m." in Chas Newkey-Burden's 2010 Justin Bieber: The Unauthorized Biography is thus consistent with the info' provided by Mallette. Her statement also clarifies where the pop star was born. With a powerhouse combo of Pluto rising on an Ascendant in the last degree of Scorpio, Bieber is "the third-most powerful celebrity in the world."

Vanessa L. Williams (American singer, actress, producer, fashion model)

* In 1983, 20-year-old Vanessa L. Williams became the first African-American woman crowned Miss America, but a scandal arose when Penthouse magazine bought and published nude photographs of her. Saturn conjunct Venus in the 8th house can put great obstacles in the path of the most talented of beauties but these obstacles can, in turn, pave the way for well-deserved success. Williams relinquished her Miss America title and rebounded from this early setback by launching a career as a singer and actor, earning multiple Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Award nominations in the process. She is probably the most successful Miss America winner to have entered the entertainment field.

In their mother-and-daughter biography, Helen Williams writes, "On the front of Vanessa's birth announcement there's a drawing of a smiling baby girl wearing a big crown and holding a scepter. It reads, 'Here she is—Miss America.'" The book includes a photo of the prophetic baby card, showing Vanessa's middle name as "Lynne" and a birth time of 11:28 a.m. Due to copyright restrictions I won't publish this image but it can be viewed here on the Amazon Books website. Romy Ransom did brilliant work obtaining the same data, including the birth time, from Williams three decades ago in the early days of Williams' career.

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WIKIPEDIA BLURB

Vanessa Williams released her debut album The Right Stuff in 1988, which spawned the hits "The Right Stuff", a No. 1 on Hot Dance Songs, and "Dreamin'" a No. 1 on R&B and No. 8 on Billboard Hot 100. Her second studio album The Comfort Zone in 1991 topped the Billboard R&B Album Chart, which spawned the Billboard Hot 100 number-one hit "Save the Best for Last". In 1994 she debuted on Broadway in the musical Kiss of the Spider Woman. In 1995 she recorded "Colors of the Wind", the Oscar-winner for Best Original Song from the Disney animated feature film Pocahontas, which reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Williams's first major film role was as the star of the feature film Eraser in 1996. She also starred in the movies Soul Food, Dance with Me, The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, Shaft and Johnson Family Vacation. From 2006 to 2010, she played the role of the scheming, self-absorbed diva and former supermodel Wilhelmina Slater in the ABC comedy series Ugly Betty, for which she received three Emmy Awards nominations. In 2009, Williams released her eighth studio album, The Real Thing. From 2010 to 2012, she starred in Desperate Housewives as spoiled rich woman Renee Perry. She starred in the supernatural drama series 666 Park Avenue in 2012.

Read more from her Wikipedia biography.

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NATAL DATA and ASTROLOGY CHART

BIRTH DATA: Vanessa Lynne Williams, 18 March 1963, 11:28 (11:28 a.m.) EST (+5), Millwood (?), New York, USA (41n12, 73w48). ASC: 9 Cancer. RR: AA (from quoted baby card reproduced in a biography). SOURCE: Sy Scholfield (©) quotes Vanessa Williams and Helen Williams, with Irene Zutell, You Have No Idea: A Famous Daughter, Her No-nonsense Mother, and How They Survived Pageants, Hollywood, Love, Loss (and Each Other) (New York: Gotham/Penguin, 2012), p. 73: "Vanessa was born ten days late on March 18, 1963, at 11:28 A.M., weighing seven pounds seven ounces, and measuring twenty inches." A photograph of Vanessa's baby card stating the same information appears on page 75 (view image here). Previously, Romy Ransom quoted Williams in person for the same data when Williams was a beauty contestant. Williams' place of birth has been given as Tarrytown, Millwood and the Bronx, all in New York state. Whichever of these places she was born in (or somewhere in between) does not change the Ascendant or Moon degrees.

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Jef Geeraerts (Flemish writer)

* Jef Geeraerts writes that he is a Pisces, born "at half past four in the afternoon. My ascendant is the Lion and this is a rare combination."

Jef Geeraerts was a colonial administrator in Belgian Congo. On the independence of the Congo he sent his wife and children back to Belgium and in August 1960 he himself returned to Belgium. During the next six years he was paid by the government (return program). After that time he needed to find a job to survive. He decided to become a writer and went to the University of Brussels to study Germanic languages.

When he had finished his studies he wrote his first novel, Ik ben maar een neger ("I'm just a negro"), which put him on the map as extremely controversial. He wrote more of these politically motivated colonial books before he started his Gangreen series. There are four parts, Gangreen 1 (Black Venus), Gangreen 2 (De Goede Moordenaar), Gangreen 3 (Het Teken van de Hond) and Gangreen 4 (Het Zevende Zegel). Later he became famous for his detective stories. Nowadays he is a celebrated crime-novelist and several of his books (De zaak Alzheimer and Dossier K) have been filmed.

Read more from his Wikipedia biography.

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Photo of Jef Geeraerts and his wife Eleonore Vigenon by Koen Broos.

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HOROSCOPE NOTES

Geeraerts has an interesting mutual reception between Mars and Uranus: "extremely controversial."

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NATAL DATA and ASTROLOGY CHART

BIRTH DATA: Jozef Adriaan Anna Geeraerts, 23 February 1930, 16:30 (4:30 p.m.) GMT (+0), Antwerp, Belgium (51n13, 04e25). ASC: 28 Leo. RR: A (from him in an autobiography). SOURCE: Sy Scholfield (c) quotes Egbert Krispyn (ed.), Modern Stories from Holland and Flanders: An Anthology (Twayne, 1973), p. 34: "Pisces: My constellation (Jef Geeraerts). I was in fact born February 23, 1930, at half past four in the afternoon. My ascendant is the Lion and this is a rare combination, as all the handbooks about astrology will tell you." Full name and place of birth from Wikipedia: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jef_Geeraerts.

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Newsmaker: Cooper Hefner (American businessman, Playboy heir).

* This month, Cooper Hefner will start running Playboy enterprises with the continued help of his 87-year-old father, Hugh Hefner.

Cooper is the youngest son of Playboy creator Hugh Hefner. Following his graduation in film production studies in May 2013, Cooper will inherit Playboy enterprises and start running the company with the continued help of his father and advisors. The younger Hefner sees this as his chance to re-introduce the magazine to a modern audience.

Read more from his Twitter profile.

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Photo Credit: Cooper Hefner, ‏@cooperhefner, 23 March 2013, "Having a beer in the dining room before the masquerade party begins.."

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HOROSCOPE NOTES: FATHER-SON SYNASTRY

Cooper's Venus in Leo is exactly conjunct Hugh's Neptune: they share an interest in promoting photographic imagery of young women. The younger Hefner's North Node in Capricorn is conjunct his father's South Node, indicating that he might take over the family business. Both charts are below.

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NATAL DATA and ASTROLOGY CHART

BIRTH DATA: Cooper Bradford Hefner, 4 September 1991, 10:22 (10:22 a.m.) PDT (+7), Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California, USA (34n03, 118w14). ASC: 29 Libra. RR: A (from news report). SOURCE: Sy Scholfield (c) quotes Nadine Brozan, New York Times, 6 Sep. 1991, p. B4: "COOPER BRADFORD HEFNER, weighing 8 pounds 1 ounce, was born at 10:22 A.M. on Wednesday in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles."

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Hugh Hefner chart: Lois Rodden quotes birth certificate in hand from Tom and Thelma Wilson.

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Alasdair Gray (Scottish writer, artist)

* Alasdair Gray quotes his birth certificate for a birth time of "9 hours 50 minutes p.m."

Alasdair Gray (born 28 December 1934) is a Scottish writer and artist. His most acclaimed work is his first novel Lanark, published in 1981 and written over a period of almost 30 years. It is now regarded as a classic, and was described by The Guardian as "one of the landmarks of 20th-century fiction." His novel Poor Things (1992) won the Whitbread Novel Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize. He is a Scottish and a civic nationalist (albeit one deeply critical of English immigration into Scotland) and a republican.

Gray's works combine elements of realism, fantasy, and science fiction, plus clever use of typography and his own illustrations. He has also written on politics, in support of socialism and Scottish independence, and on the history of English literature. He has been described by author Will Self as "a creative polymath with an integrated politico-philosophic vision", and as "a great writer, perhaps the greatest living in this archipelago today" and by himself as "a fat, spectacled, balding, increasingly old Glasgow pedestrian."

Read more from his Wikipedia biography.

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HOROSCOPE NOTES

Scotland's best known polymath has Neptune rising in Virgo and Chiron in versatile Gemini on the MC.

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NATAL DATA and ASTROLOGY CHART

BIRTH DATA: 28 December 1934, 21:50 (9:50 p.m.) GMT (+0), Glasgow, Scotland (55n53, 04w15). ASC: 10 Virgo. RR: AA (quoted birth record). SOURCE: Sy Scholfield (c) quotes Alasdair Gray, A Life In Pictures (Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 2010), Foreword: "I was born on 28th December 1934 . . . My birth certificate says I was delivered at 9 hours 50 minutes p.m."

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Lee and Lyn Wilde (American singers, twins, nonagenarians)

* Now aged 90, the Wilde Twins were born on different dates either side of midnight.

Lee and Lyn Wilde, sometimes billed as The Wilde Twins, are twin sisters, who appeared in films of the early to mid-1940s.

Born in East St. Louis, Illinois, Lee is the older of the two, born shortly before midnight of October 10, 1922, with Lyn born in the early hours of the following morning.

They began singing with their siblings in church, and by their teens were singing hymns for their local radio station, as well as performing in Illinois and Kentucky. They graduated from East St. Louis Senior High School in 1939. By 1940 they were band singers, and in 1942 they made their film debuts, as vocalists for the Charlie Barnet Band, performing one song in the Harriet Hilliard film Juke Box Jenny. They also performed with Bob Crosby for a short while. Further live performances led to another featured film appearance in the Judy Garland film Presenting Lily Mars in 1942. Joe Pasternak was impressed by them and signed them to a seven-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios. They played small roles in Andy Hardy's Blonde Trouble (1944), followed by Twice Blessed, a film written specifically for them to introduce them to a wider audience.

The sisters appeared in nine films together up until 1949. Lyn briefly continued her film career after that, appearing in six more films until 1953. They married brothers, Jim and Tom Cathcart, and focused their attentions on family life, rather than continuing in show business, but they retained a love of music. After leaving show business, Lee pursued many activities, including flying. She earned her pilots license in 1961. She also attended college in Palm Desert, earning an Associates Degree from College of the Desert, and later graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Foreign Languages from the University of California at Irvine. In 1989, they recorded a reunion album titled Back to Together Once Again and continued to perform occasionally into the 1990s.

Read more from their Wikipedia biographies.

Photo source: Yank, the Army Weekly 3 August 1945.

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HOROSCOPE NOTES

The sunny-faced twins seem to have their Suns in Libra on their ICs ruling Leo Ascendants.

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NATAL DATA and ASTROLOGY CHART

BIRTH DATA: Marion Lee Wilde, 9 October 1922, about 23:50 (11:50 p.m.) CST (+6), East St. Louis, Illinois, USA (38n37, 90w09). ASC: about 00 Leo. RR: B (from website biography).

BIRTH DATA: Mary Lyn Wilde, 10 October 1922, about 00:10 (12:10 a.m.) CST (+6), East St. Louis, Illinois, USA (38n37, 90w09). ASC: about 04 Leo. RR: B (from website biography).

SOURCE: Sy Scholfield (c) cites data from Lee Wilde Cathcart quoted on the "Wilde Twins Biography" <www.zianet.com/jjohnson/wt2.htm>: "Marion Lee and Mary Lyn Wilde were born in East St. Louis, Illinois on October 10, 1922. Technically, they had different birth dates - Lee was born just before midnight and Lyn followed just after midnight. So, Lee assumed the role of Big Sister."

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Lee Wilde Chart

Lyn Wilde Chart

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