Playwright Noel Coward is also a See-Saw, and his chart looks more what we are accustomed to seeing: three opposing planets in the Eighth House against five in the Second. His chart also is rather reminiscent of Miss McBride’s: both have Cancer at the Midheaven (hers at 22, his at 30) and both have Libra rising (hers at 19 and his at 23) so these two media artists, have much in common.
But Mr. Coward’s chart is a Northern Hemisphere chart , showing despite his public demeanor, he was a private person. His Sun at 24 Sagittarius is opposite his Moon at 13 Gemini, creates a Line of Vitality that allowed him to aware of his foibles and failings. That was to his advantage, as he used everything in his environment to create his plays (Mars conjunct Venus in the Third House of communications, the Line of Efficiency).
The novelist Stella Gibbons would recall of Coward that ”he seemed to me to incarnate the myth of the 20’s (gaiety, courage, pain concealed, amusing malice). ” Looking at that abundant Second House of Personal Resources, it does seem that the various planets are sparring to see which gets the greatest notice.
Mr. Coward was known as a deft “literary” writer, his prose full of double entendres, witty remarks and verbal repartee, but surprising the Line of Culture is missing. While it makes a minor debut as a semi-sextile (Saturn to Jupiter), it does not get a starring role.
Perhaps though that is because we are ignoring the disruptive Uranus in the Second House that is a tad too far until either the North Node or the Sun, but in exact aspect to Coward’s Part of Fortune and then another trine away from his Midheaven. Our see-saw has a Grand Trine to keep it on an even keel despite the lopsidedness of the planets on the map.
The Grand Trine misses that little stellium in Eighth House and opposite the Second, making the spectre of Death & farewells always at Coward’s shoulder.
Overall, Coward has two themes running throughout his life, one of the Grand Trine and the other of the See-Saw wanting very much to make a go of it and be something. Venus is alone in the Third House of Short Communications (he wrote many a One Act Play) but too far from the Midheaven to do much good. Instead, it relies on the relay to the Ascendant to the Midheaven to pull lyric verse and song off — when he writes he writes for others, but when he sings, it is for himself.
The Eighth House with Neptune, Pluto and the Moon suggest he would die suddenly and rather mysteriously on an island, but that was meaningless as England is an island too, so no help there.
Better luck is with his Ascendant at 22.19 Libra that Dr. Henry J. Gordon writes shows “many capabilities which should be trained early on. A restless nature that will seldom stay in one place …. but honour and reward at the end.”
And indeed it was: he was knighted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 1970. He died three years later at Firefly, his Jamaica mountaintop estate after suffering from a sudden heart attack. His secretary, Cole Lesley, said that the burial was closed to only he, two close friends in Jamaica and the staff of Sir Noël’s estate. There was later a “public” London funeral as well.
In the meantime, enjoy some songs from the “Master,” including the ever popular Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the Noonday Sun.
