Star Struck Style

March 8 is Cyd Charisse’s birthday.

I’ve discussed Cyd Charisse as an icon of Pisces style for as long as I’ve been professing to be an expert on astrological style. However, I’ve never noticed that she has two different birth dates floating around the internet. According to some sources, she was born in 1921, and according to other sources, she was born in 1922.

Looking at the natal chart on astrotheme.com, I believe that the 1921 date of birth paints a more accurate portrait of the actress. Nevertheless, that chart also includes a 4:30 AM time of birth, which is likely an estimate. That time puts both Venus and Neptune within half a degree of house cusps using the Placidus system of house division. An accurate birth time a couple of minutes earlier or later would result in a much different horoscope.

I still believe that this is the right chart, though. It gives Cyd Charisse an Aquarius rising, but with the sun, the moon, Mercury and Uranus in the first house. It also puts both Jupiter and Saturn in Virgo in the seventh house. With this configuration, I can see how an actress like Charisse performed her best work in collaboration with a couple of the most-exacting and demanding dance partners in the history of Hollywood musicals: Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. All those Pisces planets in the first house also go a long way to explain why so many of Cyd Charisse’s signature scenes are dream or fantasy sequences.

This chart also provides some unique sexual dynamics by putting both Mars and Venus in signs over which they rule: Aries and Taurus, respectively. One of the most interesting things about Cyd Charisse is how much she differed from the other leading ladies of dance. Her body was ropier and more-athletic than most of her contemporaries. While there was nothing terribly masculine about her, she was never the girl next door. Perhaps that’s why directors never really knew what to do with her. When they did figure it out, though, they gave us scenes like “Broadway Melody” from “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Girl Hunt Ballet” from “The Band Wagon.”

If you’re not sure what I mean, just Google the clips I just mentioned, and then try to imagine Cyd Charisse being anything else but that remarkable creature who only showed up long enough to remind the audience of the 1950s of what “sexy” really was.

There was never anyone quite like her.