posted December 20, 2014 02:20 PM            

I will come back with more

posted January 07, 2015 05:45 AM            

Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne are widely considered the greatest acting team in the history of theatre. Not willing to simply coast on their extraordinary natural talent, the Lunts were consummate professionals. Their passion for excellence and commitment to the art of live theatre was legendary, even at the beginning of their careers.

By the mid 1920s, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne were the two most respected, most popular, most critically acclaimed, and highest-paid stage actors in the country. At the height of their individual careers, they made a remarkable decision. They each took enormous pay cuts (from $900 per week to $300 per week) to sign on with The Theatre Guild – a fledgling company dedicated to performing new and avant-garde work – by writers like Ibsen and Shaw. The Lunts believed strongly that creating great theatre with broad impact was far more important than money. But since they were taking such large cuts in salary, they were able to put two clauses into their contracts that would profoundly affect the rest of their lives and careers.

First, the Lunts insisted that they be allowed to act together, and rather than in separate plays. From the time they signed on with The Theatre Guild to the time they retired from the stage in 1960, the Lunts only appeared together – as a team. And as impressive as their individual careers had been, that was nothing compared to their impact together. The Lunts were instrumental in the transition of American theatre from oratory (or declamation) to naturalism. They revolutionized theatre with innovations that we now accept as commonplace: overlapping dialogue, turning their backs to the audience, passionate physical contact, and a level of truth and realism in everything they did that simply could not be found on the American stage prior to the Lunts. In fact, the Lunts’ devotion to excellence was matched only by the respect and affection they inspired in their peers and protégés alike.

Biographer Maurice Zolotow wrote, "Lynn and Alfred projected an animal vitality, a spirit of gaiety and intense pleasure in being alive and in being in love. Separately, they had been original and brilliant actors. Together, they were an irresistible expression of the life force – of the joy of living."

The other requirement of the contract with The Theatre Guild was that the Lunts would never act in the summer, so they could instead come to Ten Chimneys to retreat, relax, and rejuvenate. And every summer they did just that. Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne were honoured with a United States postage Stamp in 1999.Because the Lunts were so widely loved and respected, "everyone who was anyone" in theatre, the arts, literature, etc. wanted to come to Ten Chimneys to be with and work with the Lunts. The estate, almost inevitably, became an important place for artistic creation, discussion, and inspiration. More than just the Lunts’ home, Ten Chimneys was a home for the arts – literally and metaphorically.

From the 1920s to 1960, the Lunts had a prolific stage career, with over 40 plays. Although their first movie together, The Guardsman, was a critical and commercial success, the Lunts hated the process of making films and chose instead to dedicate themselves to the art of live theatre. The film studios, however, were falling over themselves to sign the Lunts. Whoever signed them was sure to make a fortune. Not only were they the best-known actors throughout the country, but because the Lunts were so respected by other actors, whichever studio signed the Lunts was likely to sign all of the other "greats." Finally, in 1932, one studio offered the Lunts $1,000,000 for a two-film deal. Lynn was reported to tell the studio head, "My dear sir, we can be bought, but we cannot be bored. No more films."

In 1958, the Lunts began the American run of what would be their final stage performance – The Visit. The play opened in the newly dedicated Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on Broadway, honoring the couple for their extraordinary contribution to American theatre.

Once the Lunts retired from the stage in 1960, they lived in their beloved Ten Chimneys year-round – and spent many happy years there enjoying the extraordinary retreat they had created together. Alfred passed away in 1977, at the age of 84. Lynn passed away six years later, in 1983, at the age of 96. A monument at their grave reads, "Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne were universally regarded as the greatest acting team in the history of the English speaking theatre. They were married for 55 years and were inseparable both on and off the stage."

posted January 07, 2015 06:27 AM            

Sun/Moon DW in Fire (most likely), who needs more than that??
Lots of artistic/theatre contacts
Sun/Mercury DW with square - I can see the theatre here too, lots of activity and movement together, banter, spicy dialogue, very jovial the lady with Moon sq Mercury/Jupiter and him too, with Sun sq Moon/Jupiter

Mars/Saturn DW, very nice for longevity and working together

Venus/Uranus DW

strong Eros, Eros/Psyche DW
perhaps Saturn/Karma DW

important nodal contacts on both sides, probably a lot of angles we can't see

blessed Moon Jupiter, Sun/Jupiter, Venus/Jupiter - we see comedy here as well

three wonderful opposition for entertainment and theatre, but also happy and exciting love life: Sun/Neptune, Moon/Uranus, Venus/Jupiter

as usually, DWs are the key

great composite T/square, artistic partnership included (Juno/Neptune)
Sun/Merc on mdp Mars/Venus
nice Wedge from Jupiter/Amor

wonderful combo between Mars/Saturn and Venus/Jupiter/Uranus
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posted January 07, 2015 11:14 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by LeeLoo2014:

Biographer Maurice Zolotow wrote, "Lynn and Alfred projected an animal vitality, a spirit of gaiety and intense pleasure in being alive and in being in love. Separately, they had been original and brilliant actors. Together, they were an irresistible expression of the life force – of the joy of living."

---

That is, what is see in the photos as well.

For me they repsresent the symbol .

You know, the typical AAWWWWWWWWWW so sweet.

posted January 07, 2015 01:13 PM            

Rainer Maria Rilke, perhaps the greatest poet of the 20th century and Lou Andreas Salome, writer, student of Freud, and psychoanalyst.

Yeats fell in love with Maude Gonne at first sight and remained in love with her for the rest of his life.

Lou and Rilke. Their relationship spanned 30 years and ended with Rilke's death. It went through metamorphoses from unrequited love, to passionate love, to artistic and intellectual companionship and friendship.

posted January 07, 2015 01:29 PM            

"...love that overthrows life, unbiddable, ungovernable, like a riot in the heart, and nothing to be done, come ruin or rapture."

Tom Stoppard, Shakespeare in Love

Great love is archetypal and that to me means Venus in major aspect to the outer planets. But Saturn too, acting as the mediator and the means of embodiment and expression of the archetypal in human experience.

posted January 07, 2015 01:37 PM            

"I'm certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections and the truth of the imagination."

posted January 08, 2015 07:54 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by GeminiKarat:
That is, what is see in the photos as well.

For me they repsresent the symbol .

You know, the typical AAWWWWWWWWWW so sweet.

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I am happy you enjoyed it, page one.

I can't wait to see those charts, peony. Thank you for the poetry.

posted January 08, 2015 09:18 AM            

Melanie Griffith and Antonio Bandaras have just about the most amazing synastry I've ever seen and even they split after 20 years.

Meanwhile my parents had good synastry, but not as fantastic as Antonio/Melanie and they have remained married over 40 years. But my parents are from a different generation. Likewise all their brothers and sisters have remained married for similar lengths of time to their one and only spouses. It was a great way for me to grow up, and I would've loved to see my kids and nieces grow up the same way, but I don't think my generation is having the same experience. nowadays there's Viagra and the internet and these two things have thrown 'till death do us part' out the window.

posted January 08, 2015 06:39 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by manderin:
I'm starting to think the days of true commitment between partners are over.

Melanie Griffith and Antonio Bandaras have just about the most amazing synastry I've ever seen and even they split after 20 years.

Meanwhile my parents had good synastry, but not as fantastic as Antonio/Melanie and they have remained married over 40 years. But my parents are from a different generation. Likewise all their brothers and sisters have remained married for similar lengths of time to their one and only spouses. It was a great way for me to grow up, and I would've loved to see my kids and nieces grow up the same way, but I don't think my generation is having the same experience. nowadays there's Viagra and the internet and these two things have thrown 'till death do us part' out the window.

Sorry if I'm being a debbie-downer. Saturn is currently transiting over my moon.

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When you say your parents don't have as fantastic a synastry, do you mean it suggests something more platonic and harmonious? Because Griffith's and Banderas' synastry suggests more of a hot affair than a long-term marriage to me. I was surprised it lasted as long as it did.

posted January 08, 2015 06:42 PM            

Rilke met and fell in love with Lou Andreas-Salome in 1897, when he was 21 and just beginning his life as a poet. She was an established writer 14 years older than Rilke. Their relationship took changing forms from lovers, to mentor and protege, and deepest personal and literary allies. Even after their relationship ended in 1900, Lou remained his most important confidante until the end of his life.

As expected, they have many connections in their synastry, including significant hard aspects of Saturn:

Lou's Sun is conjunct Rilke's Moon
Her Saturn opposes his Moon
Sun-Saturn, DW
Venus square Neptune, DW
Venus trine Pluto, DW
His Jupiter conjuncts her Vertex
Her Chiron conjuncts his Vertex*
His Saturn squares her Valentine
Her Jupiter is conjunct his Valentine

In the house overlay to his chart (her TOB unknown),

Lou's Venus and NN is in Rilke's 5H
Lou's Moon-Neptune is in Rilke's 7H
Lou's Mars is conjunct Rilke's Neptune (7H R)
in his 8H

They have one Cinderella Linkage and one Nuclear Clash (both exact):

Lou's Jupiter trines his Chiron
Rilke's Saturn opposes Lou's Jupiter

*Rilke suffered from bipolar disorder. Lou had trained as a psychoanalyst under Freud and shared her knowledge with Rilke. I wonder if her Chiron on his Vertex is a correlation to what may have been an analyst-patient relationship as well. Lou also has Jupiter and Saturn in Rilke's 12H.

I'm particularly intrigued by the two Valentine aspects: His Saturn square to her Valentine, and her Jupiter conjunction to his Valentine. It must have been a substantial test of her Valentine to have a lover with bi-polar syndrome.

Composite:

[IMG]http://i1029.photobucket.com/a lbums/y357/centralcoasthousing/astro_621gw_59_60_rainer_maria_rilke_lou_andreas_salome_hk_zps97a563a9.gif[/IMG]

Synastry:

posted January 08, 2015 08:18 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by LeeLoo2014:
I can't wait to see those charts, peony. Thank you for the poetry.

---

You're welcome, LeeLoo. I have one chart up, working on the other one.

posted January 08, 2015 08:31 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Belba:
My first association were
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera
Yoko Ono and John Lennon
Marie and Pierre Curie

I guess what makes love great, eternal is something outside relationship and that is the binding force, not the passion between two individuals, which would otherwise pass with time... it needs something "greater", higher, some abstract idea, activity, to take it to another level. Just thinking out loud.. hm.

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I'd say it's the passion between them and what's beyond them as individuals. This is certainly true in the two examples I have: Rainer Marie Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salome and William Butler Yeats and Maude Gonne.

Rilke and Andreas-Salome shared a dedication to art and the imagination and a fruitful literary exchange that spanned a 30 year period.

William Butler Yeats and Maude Gonne were both devoted to the cause of Irish independence.

posted January 09, 2015 04:40 PM            

quote:

---

When you say your parents don't have as fantastic a synastry, do you mean it suggests something more platonic and harmonious? Because Griffith's and Banderas' synastry suggests more of a hot affair than a long-term marriage to me. I was surprised it lasted as long as it did.
[/b]

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Well, I'm not sure what you mean by that because as someone else already stated- after many years of marriage that's what all relationships turn to- a friendship. Viagra's only been around a few years. It used to be that after around 50 a guy could barely get it up and couples would just grow old together in love, but not so much sex. But my parents' charts had plenty of sexual chemistry, (tight mars trine moon DW) if that's what you're asking.

posted January 09, 2015 04:52 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by manderin:
Well, I'm not sure what you mean by that because as someone else already stated- after many years of marriage that's what all relationships turn to- a friendship. Viagra's only been around a few years. It used to be that after around 50 a guy could barely get it up and couples would just grow old together in love, but not so much sex. But my parents' charts had plenty of sexual chemistry, (tight mars trine moon DW) if that's what you're asking.

As for Melanie and Antonio, I definitely saw longterm aspects. His Saturn trines her Venus 4 degrees and her mercury within 1 degree. Furthermore her stellium of planets including her venus falls into his 7th house. Those are pretty strong factors for commitment imo. Her sun falls into his 6th which isn't ideal, but no synastry is perfect. Antonio is with a 33 year old now. Yay viagra.

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I was talking about the Pluto conjunction with Mars and Venus. That doesn't say permanence to me, even with some mild Saturn contacts.

I wasn't really asking about "hot aspects" regarding your parents' long marriage. I was asking if they had more harmonious contacts, like the trines you mentioned, because I believe they would probably be more conducive to a longer-term relationship.

posted January 10, 2015 06:24 PM            

One of my favorite threads of all time here.

posted January 11, 2015 09:36 PM            

Yeats met Maud Gonne, the love of his life and his poetic muse, when they were both 23. Although she is best known for her relationship with Yeats, she led an eventful life as an Irish revolutionary and activist who fought for Irish independence from Great Britain. Acclaimed in her lifetime as an Irish Joan of Arc, she gave shelter to evicted tenant farmers, aided political prisoners and was jailed on a number of occasions herself, fed school children, and found homes for Catholic refugees from Northern Ireland.

Yeats proposed marriage to Gonne several times, but she declined. Although she loved Yeats, she did not want to be married to him. Out of his unhappiness, he created beautiful poems, hundreds of them inspired by Maud Gonne. He was compelled, over and over again, to make something larger out of this love that never took the form he desired. A love that was realized not in marriage but in art.

The synastry between Gonne and Yeats include:

Sun-Moon DW
Sun-Saturn DW
Mars square Saturn DW
Her Saturn square his Moon (0)
Her Mars conjunct his DESC
Her Jupiter conjunct his ASC
Her Saturn opposes his Venus-Pluto
Her Pluto conjunct his Venus (0)
Her Mars squares his NN/SN axis (0)
His Jupiter & Uranus square her NN/SN axis
Her Venus square his Juno

A Grand Trine comprised of Maude's Venus trine Yeats's Mars and Neptune. Although Maud and Yeats consummated their relationship 19 years after their first meeting, it was the only time. Seamus Heaney described their relationship as a spiritual marriage. Gonne herself had once remarked that the bond between her and Yeats "is to be recreated & to be the means of spiritual illumination between us. It is to be a bond of the spirit only."

Synastry:

[IMG]http://i1029.photobucket.com/albums/y 357/centralcoasthousing/astro_61gw_59_60_william_butler_yeats_maud_gonne_hk_zps8264130c.gif[/IMG]

Composite:

[IMG]http://i1029.photobucket.com/albums/ y357/centralcoasthousing/astro_621gw_59_60_william_butler_yeats_maud_gonne_hk_zpsc5818596.gif[/IMG]

posted January 12, 2015 10:13 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by manderin:
Well, I'm not sure what you mean by that because as someone else already stated- after many years of marriage that's what all relationships turn to- a friendship. Viagra's only been around a few years. It used to be that after around 50 a guy could barely get it up and couples would just grow old together in love, but not so much sex. But my parents' charts had plenty of sexual chemistry, (tight mars trine moon DW) if that's what you're asking.

As for Melanie and Antonio, I definitely saw longterm aspects. His Saturn trines her Venus 4 degrees and her mercury within 1 degree. Furthermore her stellium of planets including her venus falls into his 7th house. Those are pretty strong factors for commitment imo. Her sun falls into his 6th which isn't ideal, but no synastry is perfect. Antonio is with a 33 year old now. Yay viagra.

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I'm not sure Viagra has anything to do with it. This is a bit offensive towards men, it suggests men won't remain with an older woman if they were able to get it up. Besides, to my knowledge, most 50y old men don't need Viagra I think many men can love even much deeper and in a more profound way than most women.