If you’re going to rise to fame playing a ditzy blonde, what more perfect chart could you have than one with no planets in earth? Of course, an earthy, sexy Taurus Ascendant should suffice for that element, but the Ascendant is, really, only skin deep. And, it does hide the risk-taker underneath, a characteristic of no earth and makes her both look like a reliable product spokesperson in her later career and yet be fun and spontaneous while doing it.

Mercury conjunct Mars in the 7th house adds to that a sparky talkativeness that keeps on going even when there’s nothing more to say, a necessary asset in long stints on the Home Shopping Network (HSN) promoting a simple frock or other items that don’t really inspire a long conversation. Like only a few other product-pitchers on TV shopping that came from earlier celebrity elsewhere but then sustained it there (Wolfgang Puck and Joan Rivers are two other notables), she carries the product by her personality, even when what she’s selling is a bore.

But there’s a tragic, almost sorrow-plagued aspect to her life that shows up in her chart, too. Moon square Sun so often reflects internalized parental problems, and she is no exception, her childhood featuring an often-violent alcoholic father, dyslexia, and other poor self-image developers. Add to that the notoriously-depressing 1946-47 Saturn-Pluto conjunction (think Pattie Duke) in her fourth house of home and there’s a lot of sadness there. Even more than that, she has Chiron conjunct the Sun, which has acted as a magnet for troubles, some self-inflicted like her unfortunate, egotistical exit from Three’s Company and other simple acts of God like her Malibu house burning down around her, taking all her worldly possessions, but leaving her alive and uninjured, just as Pluto passed her progressed Sun. Certainly, the healing of wounds and wounding life styles, both physically and mentally, are a main focus of her career.

Her ability to engage others with that Mercury-Mars trine an empathetic Cancer Moon has always allowed her to bounce back from the worst and to make sparkling lemonade out of life’s lemons. Part of that is due to her self-sufficient bowl chart which knows that in the end she may sometimes be her own worst enemy, but she’s also her own best friend.

Current events: Jupiter goes over her Midheaven this fall, so watch for another reach for the limelight as it passes through her 10th house over the next year. She should make the best of it, however, as over the following years (2011-17) Saturn will be sweeping her western planets and that will be no friend of youth, however resilient…