A comedian does Scrooge

Sir Alastair Sim was a British actor who is best known for his role as Scrooge in the Dicken’s Christmas classic, Scrooge c. 1951. It plays somewhere on television every Christmas though recently that is just via streaming. Luckily, someone put up a copy on YouTube for the rest of us. He married his student Naomi in 1930 when he was the Fulton Lecturer in Elocution at New College, Edinburgh University. They were married when Naomi turned 18 in 1930, just when Pluto the planet, not the streaming television station, was discovered. They had one daughter, Merlith, which was uncommon even in their native Scotland. He died of lung cancer in 1976. His obit is from the New York Times.

His performance “exposes much more than the grief and despair of a nasty old man, exposing a sort of wretchedness of the soul—a hollow‐eyed horror of the void that is not only before him but on all sides because of his longtime indifference to affectionate associations with other men.”

Bosley Crowther, reviewer for the New York Times on Sim as Scrooge

The Sim Chart

I’ve rectified Sim to 10 Aquarius, or the Sabian Symbol of a “man of stature catapults into transitory popularity and remains unspoiled.” Jones writes that this is when the person remains faithful to his self but in Sim’s case squared by his strong Moon, suggests that he becomes too reliant on his native talents and allows himself to coast. That, unfortunately, happens a lot more than we would like to admit.

Highlights of Sir Alastair’s chart

• Both his Saturn and Neptune are strongly aspected in Sim’s chart, suggesting that after many years of apprenticeship, he will receive recognition in the Arts.
• His Moon, and focal determinator, is exalted in Taurus and accidentally resides in the second house, suggesting he should be economically successful in his artistic career.
• His Sun is in detriment in Libra and as he had no unifying, grand trine encourages a tendency to a spare gangly appearance. Probably a powerful reason for his comedic roles.
• Jupiter is in its ruler in the ninth house.
• Saturn is in its ruler in the tenth house
• He is a bucket with a Moon handle — this occurs a lot with artistic types.

Marc Jones’s Lines

• Line of Efficiency (Venus to Mars) Semisquare. This aspect highlights how practical someone is in their life. For Sir Alastair, being practical was fricative and so practicality did not come naturally to him.
• Line of Personality (Saturn to Jupiter). Sesquiquadrate. This aspect highlights how in tune someone is with their larger social milieu. For Sir Alastair, this caused some amount of agitation, for he felt himself to be an outsider from Scotland, and somewhat at odds with London life. This shows up in deprecatory comments Inspector Hornleigh makes to his character, Sergeant Bingham. In a later movie, An Inspector Calls, filmed about 20 years later, he agitates the upper middle class family he calls upon after a suicide.
• Life of Vitality (the two luminaries). Semisquare. This aspect is not a barometer of a long life but how self-sufficient someone is. Again, this was a fricative situation.
• Life of Culture. Absent but parallel. This aspect foretells how well a person adjusts to modern conveniences. We base the parallel aspect on declination, regardless of north or south position, and here shows Sir Alastair was persistent in making a success to the modern method of acting: the movie play.

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