Liz Taylor, Black Hole Venus

Actress Elizabeth Taylor died Wednesday, 23 March 2011, of congestive heart failure. The two-time Academy Award winner was noted for a tempestuous private life, with 8 marriages and 7 divorces (once widowed), and her work with charitable causes, including AIDS research, for which she was an early and tireless advocate.

On the date of her death, asteroid Elisabetha (#412) at 24 Cancer was conjunct asteroid Requiem (the funeral mass for the dead) on a Black Hole (sudden transformation or change in status quo, altered reality) at 28 Cancer and trine transit Mars (death) at 22 Pisces, also squared Mercury (news, the Media) at 21 Aries and the Black Hole at 24 Aries.

Elisabetha further formed the Apex of a Yod, or Finger of Destiny, with inconjunct aspects to Venus (women) on the Quasar (spotlighting, publically noted event) at 25 Aquarius and Neptune (actors) at 29 Aquarius, also on a Black Hole; and asteroids Taylor (#2603) at 23 Sagittarius and Atropos (named for the Greek Fate who severs the thread of life at death) on the Galactic Center (global notoriety) at 26 Sagittarius. Transit Chiron at 2 Pisces was exactly conjunct her natal Mars.

Taylor’s (born 27 February 1932) natal Venus at 17 Aries was exactly conjunct natal Uranus and squared the Black Holes at 16 and 19 Capricorn, and says much about her life. An icon of feminine beauty, Taylor’s exotic (Uranus) violet eyes (Venus, ruling facial features) were arguably her most compelling feature, with the Black Hole’s action in evidence via her cultural status as the focus of romantic/sexual projections by countless millions of men, as well as her embattled stance as one of the most notorious femmes fatales of her day, who scandalized middle America with her affairs and home-wrecking.

Taylor’s chequered marital history, with eight marriages and seven divorces, well illustrates the Black Hole Venus dynamic, which promotes instability and sudden change in relationships. Taylor’s unions tended to run short term; her first, with hotel heir Conrad “Nicky” Hilton, lasted just nine months, with four others coming in at just about five years. The longest, with Richard Burton, was also the most tempestuous (another Black Hole Venus attribute), and lasted just over ten years; 15 months later the couple remarried, only to divorce a second time less than a year afterward. Taylor’s second husband, Michael Todd, the only mate she never divorced, was killed in a plane crash barely a year after their marriage; sudden, unexpected loss is another hallmark of Black Hole Venus.

Liz also made her fair share of controversial unions, or those deemed inappropriate, reflective of both Black Hole Venus and its conjunction with Uranus. Her marriage with singer Eddie Fisher came after their affair which resulted in his scandalous divorce from actress Debbie Reynolds (infidelity being another Black Hole Venus issue), and Taylor ended that relationship by stepping out with Richard Burton, whom she married for the first time just nine days after divorcing Fisher. Another odd pairing was to politician John Warner, a future Senator from Virginia, whom many considered unsuited to Taylor. But her eighth and final husband was the most disparate—Larry Fortensky was a construction worker, relatively penniless, 20 years her junior, and the couple met while undergoing treatment at the Betty Ford clinic. Liz’s irregular love life continued to make news late in her life—in April 2010 the 78-year-old Taylor took to her Twitter account to refute an announcement that she had become engaged to her manager, Jason Winters, aged 49. With her record, no one had found it shocking.

Venus also rules finances, and the Black Hole’s influence here is in evidence in its record-setting capacity when in 1963 Taylor became the first actress ever to earn $1 million for a single role, in “Cleopatra.” Its acquisitive nature is represented by Taylor’s net worth, estimated at $600 million in 2010, and the $50 million she helped raise for AIDS research and relief globally.