Marilyn Monroe's Birth Chart

Of the nine, four hold whatever the minute: the earth gap (about one chart in 7), Mercury's combustion (about one chart in 4), Mercury's rulership of its own sign (about one chart in 6) and Venus in the sign of its detriment (about one chart in 6).

The other five rest on 9:30 AM: eight planets are above the horizon (about one chart in 9); the Sun and Moon form a trine (about one chart in 10); Jupiter is Lord of the Geniture (about one chart in 8); the planets split into two facing groups, a seesaw (about 42%); and the Sun had left the 11th house for the 10th less than a minute before it. The sample has no rate for that last item.

Of the twelve points counted, planets plus angles, air and water hold four apiece, fire three (Venus, Neptune and the Ascendant), and earth only the Midheaven at 6°02′ Taurus. No planet stands in Taurus, Virgo or Capricorn, which the 1920s sample records in about one chart in 7. Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto sat in Scorpio, Pisces, Leo and Cancer, so the gap turned on the faster bodies.

Modern element-counters treat an empty element as one to be built rather than leaned on, some pointing to the lone earth point, here the Midheaven, as its foothold. Fixed signs hold six points, including both angles; cardinal signs carry only Venus and Pluto.

At 9:30 AM, only two planets sit under the horizon: Neptune, in the 1st, and Saturn, down in the 4th. The sample finds that tilt in about one chart in 9 from the decade, and it leans on the clock: the Moon drops into the 6th house for a birth 31 minutes later. The planets also split into two opposed clusters, the pattern called a seesaw, with the larger empty arc spanning 89°13′ (see the chart pattern analyzer).

Every house on this page depends on what Monroe told Barris: that by the records and her certificate she was born at about 9:30 AM at Los Angeles General Hospital. The interviews appeared in 1995 as Marilyn: Her Life in Her Own Words. Lucy Freeman's 1992 book and Frances Lefkowitz's 1995 biography print the same hour without naming a record. No rival time turned up, though a dedicated search for rectified times is still outstanding.

The visible paperwork confirms less. California's certified copy for Norma Jeane Mortenson, filed with the registrar on June 5, 1926 and certified on October 24, 1955, gives date, city and parents but has no hour field. Edna Rowland's 1996 True Crime Astrology says a photograph in Robert F. Slatzer's 1974 book shows the certificate giving 9:30 AM; Slatzer's book could not be read. Until a copy of that photograph is seen, the hour rests on Monroe's word rather than on a document.

Los Angeles kept Pacific Standard Time that June, with no summer clock, so the moment is 17:30 UTC on June 1, 1926. The word “approximately” matters for two cusps. The Sun reached the 10th less than a minute before the stated time, and Pluto crossed into the 11th with less than a minute to spare. Leo, up for 2 hours 25 minutes in all, would still have been rising had the true birth come up to 1 hour 3 minutes sooner or 1 hour 21 minutes later, while the Ascendant degree, 13°06′ Leo, moved one degree every 4.9 minutes.

Saturn and Neptune belong to both figures. Neptune, 22°13′ Leo in the 1st, opposes the Aquarius pair of Moon (19°05′) and Jupiter (26°49′), both lodged in the 7th. Saturn, moving backward through Scorpio at 21°26′ from the 4th house, squares all three; its tightest link, to Neptune, is 0°46′, against 2°20′ for the Moon and 5°23′ for Jupiter.

Every member sits in a fixed sign, so the open leg, the point opposite Saturn, falls in Taurus, one of the earth signs the planets avoid. Pattern writers say the apex of a T-square absorbs the tension of the opposition it cuts across; this apex is also the body the dignity scoring ranks last, at 50 out of 100.

The Ascendant at 13°06′ Leo makes the Sun the chart ruler, since the Sun rules Leo. Its own position is 10°26′ Gemini, inside the 10th house, which tradition gives to career and reputation. Astrologers commonly describe a Gemini Sun as quick and talkative, and traditional practice weights the house that holds the Ascendant's ruler; under Whole Sign houses that house becomes the 11th for any minute of the Leo window.

The Moon, 19°05′ Aquarius, opposes the Ascendant from the 7th house, the house of partners, 7°43′ from Jupiter. Twentieth-century textbooks give an Aquarius Moon a cool, independent manner. It was a disseminating Moon, the phase after full (moon phase by birthday). Mars, 20°43′ Pisces, shares the 8th with Uranus at 28°59′ Pisces; Pluto, 13°23′ Cancer, holds the 11th.

Mercury, Mars and the three outer planets were moving faster than average, Jupiter slower, and Saturn was the one retrograde body. Nothing passes the Sun's limit of 23°26′ in declination, so no planet is out of bounds. Declinations of the Sun (22°01′ north), Mercury and Pluto fall within a degree of one another, which declination specialists call a parallel.

Gemini to Aquarius makes the Sun and Moon an air trine, which the 1920s sample shows in about one chart in 10. By degree it is the widest entry in the table, 8°39′ from exact and separating, so a later birth loosens it and astrologers who allow the lights only a few degrees would drop it. The closest contact is Mars in Pisces trine Saturn in Scorpio at 0°42′, applying.

Aspects to the angles lean on the hour. The Sun sextiles the Ascendant at 2°39′, the Moon opposes it at 5°59′, and Venus meets the Midheaven across the Aries–Taurus line at 7°17′. Venus also sextiles Jupiter at 1°55′, tying the weakened Venus to the top-scoring planet.

Sunrise came 4 hours 47 minutes before the birth, and the Sun stood 56°57′ high: a day chart. The sect scheme favors the day team of Sun, Jupiter and Saturn over the night team of Moon, Venus and Mars. Jupiter, at 26°49′ Aquarius, is angular, slow, in sect and a triplicity ruler of Aquarius; the dignity scoring puts it first at 81 out of 100, and so Lord of the Geniture; the sample gives Jupiter that rank in about one chart in 8 of 1920s births.

Mercury occupies Gemini, its own sign, a dignity counted in about one chart in 6. It is also combust, 3°39′ from the Sun (about one chart in 4), though too far for cazimi. Classical authors call a combust planet hidden and weakened in the Sun's glare, so this Mercury nets out third, at 73; it was gaining on the Sun toward a superior conjunction.

Venus is the reverse case. At 28°45′ Aries it faces its own Libra from across the zodiac, a detriment the sample puts at about one chart in 6, and it is a night planet in a day chart; its conjunction with the Midheaven lifts it to 54.

The record lists ten dated events, each tied to a published source, from The Asphalt Jungle's release on May 12, 1950 to the early hours of August 5, 1962. All but two concern a film or its reception. John Huston's crime picture gave Monroe a small supporting part as Angela Phinlay.

Lead roles followed. Niagara, released by 20th Century-Fox on January 21, 1953, cast her as Rose Loomis. That July 1, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, with Jane Russell, premiered in Atlantic City, and on June 3, 1955 Billy Wilder's The Seven Year Itch opened in New York City. Bus Stop, released on August 31, 1956, was the first film she chose to make under her new studio contract.

Some Like It Hot opened in New York on March 29, 1959, and on March 10, 1960 it won her the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, the record's only award. The Misfits, written by Arthur Miller, premiered in New York on February 1, 1961; it was the last film she completed.

On May 19, 1962 she sang “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” at President Kennedy's birthday gala in Madison Square Garden. Before dawn on August 5 she was found dead at her home in Brentwood, Los Angeles; the county coroner ruled the death a probable suicide. These are dated, sourced facts; the page draws no astrological reading from them.

On the databank's similarity score, four person pages come closest. Muhammad Ali's leads, matching both the Aquarius Moon and the Leo Ascendant, though his Sun is not in Gemini; Prince and Novak Djokovic share just the Gemini Sun, and Sachin Tendulkar just the Leo rising. None of the four pairs Monroe's Gemini Sun with her Leo rising. Among roster entries, June 1, 1926 belongs to Monroe alone.

Take away the Lahiri ayanamsa for 1926, 22°49′, and most planets change sign. The sidereal Sun, 17°37′ Taurus, keeps Mercury for company; the Moon becomes 26°16′ Capricorn and the rising degree 20°16′ Cancer. The tropical earth gap therefore has no sidereal counterpart, while Venus, Jupiter and Uranus sit late enough in their signs to stay put.

Saturn's only lifetime return to 21°26′ Scorpio came in one pass, on October 27, 1955 (age 29.4), after The Seven Year Itch had opened and before Bus Stop was released. Jupiter's first return needed three passes and was complete by December 11, 1938. Its second arrived on March 30, 1950, shortly before The Asphalt Jungle reached cinemas, and its third on March 11, 1962, the year of the Madison Square Garden gala.

For 17:30 UTC on June 1, 1926 at 34°03′ N, 118°12′ W, the Boyle Heights site of today's LAC+USC Medical Center, precise astronomical calculations give every position on this page, with Placidus houses. Each rate is a share of simulated births, equal in number per decade and spread evenly through the day, at cities whose odds of selection grow with the square root of population; every one passes through this page's code.