It’s been a busy few days delivering signed copies of “Mirror Mirror: The Astrology of Famous People and the Actors Who Have Portrayed Them” to various outlets in London. However, with things being as they are with travel being so difficult, people from out of town (and the country) have told me they wished they cold have a signed copy too. So I’m super happy to be able to offer a signed copy of “Mirror Mirror: The Astrology of Famous People and the Actors Who Have Portrayed Them”. I’ll sign a copy JUST FOR YOU, package it and take it to the post office to ship it to you. It doesn’t cost extra to have the book signed but postage and packaging fees have to be added (it’s cheaper than travelling to a conference to see me!). If you live in London, I’m happy to bring you a signed copy and have a chat over a pint or cup of tea (email me at [email protected]). Public places only of course. You can also buy unsigned copies from the usual outlets such as Amazon.
If you like film and astrology trivia, why not follow me at mirrormirrorastrology on Instagram? It’s my new page.
You can also check out my new consultation service from the Cosmic Intelligence Agency. I still focus on family work which you can book here (this is a service for the entire family) and you can still get computer generated reports here.
To give you a taste of what’s inside “Mirror Mirror” here’s the foreword by the wonderful Julia Parker followed by a review from the equally wonderful Victor Olliver.
FOREWORD
Among the many astrology books published each year – each decade, indeed – how many explore a genuinely new idea? It can safely be said that Alex Trenoweth has achieved that goal in a book which is based on a comparison of the charts of famous film actors and of the personalities they have portrayed for the cinema.
A physical impersonation and spectacular make-up is one thing, but to give the impression even for just 120 minutes, that Mrs Thatcher or Linda Chamberlain are actually on-screen before us requires some kind of indefinable theatrical magic. Magic – or astrology? In her intriguing book Ms Trenoweth examines over a hundred examples of the synastry between actors and their biographical roles. The results are of course variable, as in almost all astrological books concerning synastry, but here, in almost every case, one follows the author’s arguments with eager interest.
This is a book not only for the astrologer with a thorough knowledge of the subject, but – spectacularly – for those with a keen, developing interest. A certain amount of knowledge is of course essential when reading, for instance, the separate chapters on the planets – and Chiron and the nodes – but the enthusiastic film-goer will find enormous interest in those which deal, in the core of the book, with the relationship between the actor and his or her subject. The interest broadens when Ms Trenoweth (whose knowledge of astrology and film history run side by side, with neither one in advance of the other) looks at a range of actors who have played the same character – for example, Harry Houdini, Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria and Stephen Hawking.
I must have seen a good dozen Hamlets at the theatre: how I would have liked to read Ms Trenoweth speculate on, say, Peter O’Toole’s disastrous performance – what, in his chart, betrays his inability to play the introvert Lawrence with such spectacular insight, when he seemed to have no intuitive connection at all with the introvert Prince? How did the planets at birth encourage John Gielgud to be the finest Hamlet of our time, when that fine actor Jude Law failed to reach the heights? Perhaps another book by another astrologer – but with this book, remember, Alex Trenoweth, comes first. Huckleberry Finn, reading Pilgrim’s Progress, found ‘the statement was interesting, but tough.’ This author’s statements are interesting and far from tough. It deserves to be the bedside book of the year.
Julia Parker 2021
REVIEW
The moment I opened Mirror Mirror, memories were revived. Before astrology beckoned me rather late in life (thank you, Saturn) I reviewed movies and attended film festivals – Cannes being by far the most glamorous and cool. I was transported back to the Palais des Festivals, the vast entertainment hub of Cannes on the Croisette, and heard once again Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals, the ‘Aquarium’ movement in particular which was played on a loop morning, noon and night, year after year, in the Palais’ public halls and corridors. I didn’t know it then, but Cannes had enjoined the movies showcased with a piece of music that summons up dreams and magical phantasms of reality (as well as an aquarium) – Neptune in a word. In modern astrology, Neptune rules the movie, the arena of light illusion, all that appears real but is not. Unwittingly, the organisers of Cannes had found the perfect Neptunian, watery serenade for the celluloid fodder of the dream factories.
Another one of those…coincidences.
Mirror Mirror takes us into the domain of Neptune for an amazing and original exploration. As a film buff herself, Alex Trenoweth started to notice the astrological connections between real-life stories and the illusory renditions on the big screen, and between the real people portrayed (such as Oscar Wilde or Elizabeth I) and the actors hired to portray them. We may say, for instance, that Taron Egerton gives us a remarkably good impression of Elton John in Rocketman, but only an astrologer can make something of the Sun/Moon conjunction in the two men’s synastry which enabled the actor to get under the skin of the subject and persuade us that he was in effect Elton John.
Trenoweth puts a hundred movies under the astro-microscope, supported by hundreds of charts – mostly biwheels and triwheels. She rewatched all the movies under discussion, with Mr Bubbles by her side, her pet cat who has since departed for purr-heaven. And what helps make this an astounding book is its structure which ensures that a love of the movies does not eclipse the astrology.
This is achieved quite simply by allotting each of the planets and lunar points its own chapter with a selection of films that share its astrological themes. As Trenoweth explains in her Introduction, films are categorised “by the planet that showed the strongest synastry between character and actor”. So, to take one planetary example, Pluto embraces A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, Al Capone, Madame Curie and Schindler’s List because each features highly transformative, Plutonian themes. But also, there are interesting aspects and synastry involving Pluto: Greer Garson, for example, was perfect to play Marie Curie, a scientist who researched radioactivity, because Garson’s Pluto (radioactivity) was conjunct her own MC (career).
Another wise move structurally was the decision only to look at the films that are about real people living or dead – this roots the astrological associations in an origin actuality, a discrete starting point from which to trace the links that take us into the filmic dream. And the astrology.
Trenoweth imposes a disciplined, set format on each movie analysis, upholding order, and this reminds us that this is not a book to be confused with the spirit of Photoplay. Under each title, birth data of selected starring performers is set out before Trenoweth treats us to a faithful synopsis of the storyline. Then she moves to the aspects and synastry. So, in the case of Wilde in the Venus chapter – the biopic of Oscar Wilde’s decline and fall starring Stephen Fry – it is significant that the two men’s Venuses in Libra are conjunct, and that Fry’s MC sits on Wilde’s North Node. This aspect alone suggests a fated quality to Fry’s uncanny conjuring up of Wilde, as if he were born to play the part. (Arguably, Fry has never done anything better since the brilliance of his Wilde.)
Trenoweth also notes that Fry’s co-star Jude Law’s Pluto in Libra is conjunct the Moon of Lord Alfred Douglas, aka the infamous Bosie whose affair with Wilde and feud with his own father were largely responsible for Wilde’s destruction. It is as if the astrological dynamics of the actual story are played out at a filmic level in an interplay of matching cosmic energies – crossing boundaries of time, personal identity, fact and fiction, and locations – a mirroring only to be found in the horoscope.
Countless other new things are to be discovered in this compendious book. In the later chapter Multiple Versions, Trenoweth revisits those famous people whose lives have been turned into more than one biopic, people like Ted Bundy or Stephen Hawking. My favourite chapter is…Favourites, at the back of the book, comprising the flicks that have turned Trenoweth into a fangirl. I share a lot of her loves. I was most pleased to see Michael Douglas’ Liberace film Behind the Candelabra – not strictly a big screen film but a TV movie, largely thanks to Hollywood studio homophobia – analysed, as well as the Meryl Streep classic Julie & Julia. The astrological connections in these and many other films are breath-taking.
If ever a book should come with a carton of popcorn, it’s Mirror Mirror. Prodigiously researched, painstakingly detailed to satisfy the worst cases of data freakery, and beautifully turned out (applause for publisher Margaret Cahill), this is a book that (like all good movie franchises) most probably will end up with a sequel and a prequel.
Victor Olliver The AA Journal
