The Marx Brothers
Marxes in the Sky - Gummo, 23 October 1892

graphic
(using Google)

Gummo's Natal Chart
This chartwheel was created using Halloran Software's Astrology for Windows, available as shareware at www.halloran.com.
Image used by permission.

Gummo (Milton) Marx
October 23, 1892, New York City

Interpretation by Kathy Biehl

Technical Stuff

This interpretation uses the birthdate and place given in the Marx Brothers Encyclopedia. The chart was run with the sun on the ascendant, to avoid the problem of not having an exact birth time, and as a result I'm not making any conclusions about the ascendant. The planets and signs are:

Sun conjunct south node conjunct Uranus conjunct Mercury in Scorpio
Moon in Sagittarius
Venus in Virgo
Mars in Aquarius
Jupiter in Aries
Saturn in Libra
Neptune conjunct Pluto in Gemini
North node in Taurus

Interpretation

This chart shows an intense, tenacious personality with a warm heart and broad sense of humor, a concern for justice and fairness and a humanitarian bent.

The striking aspect of Gummo's chart is the stellium in Scorpio, with the sun, south node, Uranus and Mercury falling between 0 and 10 degrees. Having just the sun in Scorpio lends intensity; this pile-up increases it exponentially. This is a case of still waters running very, very deep. No matter how jovial and friendly he may have appeared -- and with the moon in Sagittarius, he probably had a winning smile and a constant (if perhaps lowbrow) sense of humor - - he had an affinity for secrets, both in terms of being able to cloak his own true thoughts, reactions, emotions, etc. and of perceiving other people's. No doubt he could carry on a non- threatening, even joking conversation with someone and come away knowing exactly knowing what the other person's motives were, where their weak spots were, and how to get to them -- traits that would have been invaluable as a talent agent.

All that Scorpio, especially with the south node in the act, would have made him hang on tenaciously to whatever he considered his possessions, which very likely included people and relationships. (The south node represents instinctive, knee-jerk behavior, what a person resorts to under pressure.) Since Scorpio is obsessed with life and death situations, he could have had a very tenuous time with health himself, and in fact was dangerously sickly as a boy. His ego, will, sense of purpose (sun) were absolutely tied up with how he thought and communicated (Mercury; like Zeppo and Harpo, he would have known things just by being in a situation); the presence of Uranus added a touch of changeability, quirkiness maybe, and a predisposition to reinventing himself periodically, and probably out of the blue.

The presence of Uranus in this line-up sounds a theme that is repeated with moon in Sagittarius and Mars in Aquarius: he was both willing and compelled to break from the pack and chart his own course. (He did, in fact, leave the act very early on, and was long gone by the time the Brothers opened on Broadway.)

His emotional nature and needs, as shown by the moon, follow the freedom-and-distance- loving theme that appears in most of the Marx Brothers' charts. "Don't fence me in" would be a natural refrain for Moon in Sagittarius, while all the Scorpio would expect other people to stay put. Moon in Sagittarius likes to run off and have adventure, whether it's mental or actual, and is also prone to puns and silly humor. (This plus the scatological predisposition of Scorpio would create a connoisseur of bathroom humor — which he would have been loathe to exhibit in front of a woman, with his Venus in Virgo.)

Since the moon position shows a person's experience of their mother, he may have been more tuned into her warm and fun side than were his brothers. (For a comparison of their relationships with their mother, click here.) She would have seemed adventurous, risk-taking, exciting, playful — not someone to rely on, but definitely someone to fear. This comes from the complication of Gummo's moon placement, an opposition (stressful aspect) to the Neptune/Pluto conjunction in Gemini. He could well have seen her as having supernatural powers, and definitely as wielding absolute power over him. (A fascinating aspect of this is that the power planet that challenges his moon, Pluto, is the ruler of his sun sign — the symbolism being that he was ruled by a deep, potentially terrifying, unyielding feminine power.) He probably had some open power struggles with Minnie. The Scorpio intensity gave him an edge his brothers didn't have, and other planets -- the joviality of moon in Sagittarius and Jupiter in Aries, and the "do-it-for-the-better-good" of Mars in Aquarius -- aided him in getting Minnie to release him from her career clutches. Her hold on him in other ways would have remained strong, though.

Jupiter in Aries made him naturally lucky; if he did gamble or take a risk, it paid off more often than not. He would have been predisposed to share his good fortune; with Mars in Aquarius, he would have put energy into friendships, done things for other people to help or better them, and possibly been active in humanitarian concerns. (Saturn in Libra would have attuned him to issues of fairness and justice; Mars in Aquarius would have made him acts on his beliefs.) The Jupiter and Mars placements combined describe a man ready, willing and able to lend friends money or call in favors for their benefit. It's no surprise that he agreed to ego into the service during WWI, at his mother's insistence, so that none of his older brothers would be drafted and break up the act.

Copyright Kathy Biehl 1999. All rights reserved. Permission is granted for electronic replication or distribution of this article only if you include the copyright notice.


(This page was originally created for Frank Bland's 'Why A Duck?' website)

This site uses material originally created by Frank Bland for his website Why A Duck?. Frank did kindly give me permission to use this material.

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