View
Chart of Dorothy Stratten
Dorothy Stratten; February 28, 1960; 10:58 p.m.; Vancouver
B.C., Canada (1)
Sun at 9 Pisces trine Neptune at 9 Scorpio
Dorothy Stratten: Death of a Centerfold
On
August 14, 1980, at around 11:30 a.m.,(2) Playboy
centerfold model Dorothy Stratten went to visit her estranged
husband, Paul Snider, at the apartment they used to
share in Los Angeles, to discuss their divorce settlement.
Snider,
who had been instrumental in Stratten’s
success, was bitter over the failure of their relationship,
which
ended when Stratten began a secret affair with film director
Peter Bogdanovich, whose film, They All Laughed, she had
a starring role in. Tragically, some time over the course of
that afternoon, Snider shot and killed Stratten, and then
turned the gun
on himself. With her acting career gaining momentum, and
her recent selection for the title of Playboy’s “Playmate
of the Year”, the scandal caused by the murder of a
beautiful, young rising star made her story legend in Hollywood
history.
A Star is Born
In late 1977, Snider, who already had a local
reputation as a pimp and hustler, spotted seventeen-year-old
Stratten
working behind the counter of a Dairy Queen in Vancouver.
It wasn’t long before the unlikely pair became romantically
involved.
After coaxing her to pose nude for a photographer,
Snider sent the shots to Playboy’s editors, who at
the time were in the process of selecting a candidate for
their 25th
anniversary playmate.
Although she was not selected for that particular
honor, Stratten was chosen to be Playboy’s centerfold
for August 1979, with a shot at becoming their 1980 Playmate
of the Year.
As Stratten was now living and working in
Los Angeles, Snider began to feel his grip on her fade.
In an attempt to maintain
it, he proposed to her, and, acknowledging her “debt” to
him, she accepted.
Unhappy Endings
They
were married in Las Vegas on June 1, 1979,(3) during the
week of Stratten’s first promotional
appearance for Playboy, and the couple was soon living
together in the
Los Angeles area.
However, the Playboy staff was not enthusiastic
about Stratten’s
marriage to Snider – his abrasive, street-wise personality
clashed with those who identified with the more refined image
of a “gentlemen’s magazine”. Ultimately,
however, it was Snider’s jealous attempts to control
Stratten, and the demands of her burgeoning acting career,
that started to pull the pair apart.
When she signed on for They
All Laughed in the fall of 1979,
Snider was explicitly denied the chance to accompany her
on set in New York City. By the time shooting was completed
the following spring, she had already decided to leave him
for Bogdanovich.
Aftermath
Stratten’s unexpected death sparked
long-term consequences in the lives of the people close
to her: Bogdanovich collapsed
in distress, and wrote a book, The Killing of the Unicorn,
about the murder.
Besides blaming himself for not having been
alert to the danger to her life, he held Hugh Hefner’s
Playboy empire, and its seductive, misogynist portrayal
of women, responsible
for the tragedy.
His grief brought him close to Stratten’s family,
particularly her younger sister Louise, who was only twelve
at the time of the murder. Hefner, in retaliation to Bogdanovich’s
charges against him, exploited this fact by speculating about
the nature of their relationship to the press.
Indeed,
united in their grief and love for Dorothy, the couple – despite
their twenty-nine year age difference - was married on
December 30, 1988,(4) amidst
great controversy,
though they managed to last twelve years, before she filed
for divorce in 2001.
Living Canvas of Potential
View
Chart of Dorothy Stratten Murder
August 14, 1980; time
unknown (“afternoon”),
noon used; Los Angeles CA
Sun at 22 Leo trine Neptune at 19 Sagittarius
On the day Stratten was murdered, both she
and Hefner were having a Sun-Neptune trine recurrence transit.
In Stratten’s
case, her Pisces Sun is in opposition to Pluto in Virgo,
representing, in its own way, all of the powerful men who
had control and influence over her life. Planets that are
opposite the Sun in a natal chart tend to represent characteristics
that relate to a person’s romantic partner(s).
While Snider represents Pluto’s darkest character,
i.e. that of an obsessed stalker/killer, Hefner, as the head
of the powerful corporation, and the tormented Bogdanovich,
as Stratten’s secret “other man”, are also
portrayed by Pluto in her horoscope.
Stratten’s natal Sun-Neptune trine,
taken in context with the Pluto opposition, reflects the
manner in which her
life and image was controlled by these men. As her natal
Neptune was conjunct her natal Ascendant, she was like a
living canvas of potential, available to the whims of their
imaginations.
Legacy
Although all Playboy models are objects of
fantasy, Stratten’s
premature death immortalized her as a tragic figure, elevating
her status well beyond that of the typically disposable “Playmate”.
The image of her as the young, innocent victim of fantasy
gone wrong is the permanent legacy marked in her horoscope
by her natal Sun-Neptune trine.
While Stratten’s Sun-Neptune trine
recurrence transit is reflective of certain circumstances
regarding her murder,
it does not reflect the actual murder itself. Indeed, the
recurrence represents the legacy left in its wake, not to
mention the blind trust she exhibited by going to confront
Snider alone.
More than anything, the planetary transit
to her natal chart that does represent the tragedy is Saturn’s
conjunction transit to her natal north Lunar Node, opposite
her natal
Mercury - a signal of brutal consequences arising from disputes
over matters of duty, disappointment and difficult endings.
Survivors
Saturn
was at 25 Virgo that fateful day, and also made a conjunction
to Hefner’s natal Ascendant(5) and her sister
Louise’s natal Uranus.(6) For
Bogdanovich, Saturn’s
transit made a configuration to his difficult natal opposition
between Venus and Mars, by sextile and trine respectively,
a reflection of bitter stand-offs between women and men.
Also, transiting Uranus was opposite his
natal Uranus – a
half cycle widely acknowledged by astrologers as the signature
transit for the mid-life crisis, as it always occurs during
one’s early forties. The Uranus half-return coincides
with phases in life where the desire to recapture one’s
youth can be difficult to resist.
It is fair to say that, since the natal Uranus in the horoscopes
of both Bogdanovich and Louise Stratten was targeted by transits
at the time, the odd couple was set on course for their eventual
union from that day forward, by virtue of the fact that they
suddenly shared common circumstances.
Snider
was having his Saturn return at the time of the murder/suicide,(7) the planetary cycle that occurs
as an individual approaches
his/her thirtieth year. The Saturn return cycle’s influence
is very much opposite to that of the Uranus half-return;
people in the midst of their Saturn return are forced to
face their mortality and age. It is a sobering phase in life,
though sadly Snider could not handle the harsh reality of
this awakening experience.
Playboy After Dark
View
Chart of Hugh Hefner
April 9, 1926; 4:20 p.m.; Chicago
IL(8)
Sun at 19 Aries trine Neptune at 22 Leo
Hefner was not only having a Sun-Neptune
trine recurrence transit on the day of the murder, but
transiting Neptune
was also trine his natal Sun at the time. For Hefner, whose
magazine had been a cornerstone of the sexual revolution
for nearly thirty years, Stratten’s murder marked the
symbolic climax in its history.
As
the decadent 1970s gave way to the more conservative climate
of the 1980s, Hefner’s Playboy
empire gradually lost its cultural impact, and by the end
of the decade was
forced to downsize considerably, with the last of its famous
exclusive nightclubs closing in 1991.(9)
Curiously,
the first Playboy club had opened on February 29, 1960,
in Chicago (probably at 11:30 a.m.(10)) – the
day after Dorothy Stratten was born. This eerie coincidence
demonstrates how Sun-Neptune trine recurrence transits have
governed the rise and fall of Hefner’s effort to fulfill
his personal vision, borne from the fertile imagination of
a natal Sun-Neptune trine.
Bibliography
Picture
Shows: The Life and Films of Peter Bogdanovich (Andrew
Yule, Limelight Editions 992)
Notes
1 Dorothy Stratten’s data, rated AA;
source: B.R. in hand, Steinbrecher.
2 Yule, p. 161
3 Yule, p. 135 – the Sun was at a wide opposition to Neptune, making
it a recurrence transit for both Paul Snider and Dorothy’s sister Louise
Stratten.
4 Yule, p. 227 – Sun conjunct Neptune at 9 Capricorn.
5 Uncertainty exists over whether CST or CDT was in effect at the time of Hefner’s
birth. However, a CST birth would put his Ascendant at 25 Virgo, exactly where
Saturn’s transit was at the time of Stratten’s murder. CDT reportedly
went into effect on April 25th that year hanks to Frank Clifford for this
info).
6 Louise Stratten was born on May 8, 1968, in Vancouver BC, Canada (Yule, p.
131)
7 Paul Snider was born on April 15, 1951, in Vancouver BC, Canada (http://www.dorothystratten.com/appoint23.html
www.findagrave.com/pictures/4176.html)
8 Hugh Hefner’s data, rated AA; source: Gauquelin Book of American Charts
quotes B.C. NB. CDT (+5) is a possibility, though unlikely.
9 http://www.seanparnell.com/Bar%20Reviews/Gone/PlayboyClub/PlayboyClub.htm
10 http://www.seanparnell.com/Bar%20Reviews/Gone/PlayboyClub/PlayboyClub.htm |
