George Arliss, original name Augustus George Andrews, (born April 10, 1868, London, Eng.—died Feb. 5, 1946, London from chronic bronchitis age 77). He portrayed many historic personages in motion pictures.
He began his acting career in 1887 but found success when he appeared with Mrs. Patrick Campbell in London during the 1900–01 season. In 1902 he played in The Second Mrs. Tanqueray in New York City, and in 1911 he had the title role in Disraeli that he would reprise later in film for an Oscar.
Arliss was an established leading actor when he turned to films in 1920. His pictures include The Green Goddess (1930), Old English (1930), Alexander Hamilton (1931), The House of Rothschild (1934), and Cardinal Richelieu (1935). He won an Oscar for best actor of 1929–30 for his role in the film version of the British PM Benjamin Disraeli. He also wrote several plays and two autobiographical works: Up the Years from Bloomsbury (1927) and My Ten Years in the Studios (1940).
George’s Charts
We have rectified Mr. Arliss for 17 Leo and 12:30 PM instead of the 12:06 AM and the 20 Sagittarius that Marc Jones cites. Interestingly, both give Arliss a fire ascendant. Our rectification places Pluto in his 10th house that is pertinent because it was not until 1930 that he won an Academy Award — Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in February of that year. Dr. Jones’s would put Pluto roughly in the 12th House.
The chart, a fanhandle <sup> 1 </sup>, shows how much his career was owed to his popularity no different from a politician but with the preponderance in the 8th House for those celebrities long dead.
The chart above shows his marriage to Florence Kate Montgomery Smith. While obviously they were both thespians and attracted to each other’s abilities (the dual preponderance in the 5th house) it also shows their great loyalty and love for one another (see the Part of Fortune conjunct his Sun and Neptune). The Mars in the fourth house here depicts not squabbling but a great passion.
The final chart is for Arliss’s death on February 5, 1946 at home in London using Converse Solar Arc Directions, because this is a concrete (physical) event. Venus, that viral contagion, is in the 8th House conjunct Mercury and the lungs. With penicillin discovered but not publicly available, Arliss’s bout with bronchitis was to end fatally.
Footnotes:
- Marc Edmund Jones does not mention the fanhandle in his Essentials of Astrology, that temperament type was defined by astrologer Robert Jansky in his privately published pamphlet, Planetary Patterns. We agree with Jansky’s rationale and have seen its significance in many patterns and so have adopted it. This is one of the many ways we have broken with Dr. Jones.
