Bella Starace Sainati

In 1908, Bella Starace Sainati became the leading actress of an unusual Italian theater company: a troupe devoted to the Grand Guignol, the style of horror theater born in Paris that specialized in murders, madness and graphic violence on stage. The company was founded by her husband, the actor Alfredo Sainati, and for years the couple toured Italy and abroad, thrilling and terrifying audiences.

She was born on June 2, 1878, in Naples, in the evening, according to the time kept in astrological records. The daughter of a legal scholar, she earned a teaching diploma at seventeen but chose the stage instead. Her Sun is in Gemini in the seventh house, the area of marriage and partnership. Gemini is versatile and expressive, and the seventh house describes a life shaped by a partner. Her career was closely bound to her husband's: they met on stage, married, and worked together for years in the same companies.

Her Moon and Mars are both in Cancer in the eighth house, which deals with death, fear, crisis and the forbidden. Cancer feels intensely, and Mars there brings emotional force and courage. An eighth-house emphasis is a striking fit for an actress who made her name in horror theater, performing scenes of terror and death night after night.

Scorpio is her rising sign, adding intensity, depth and a taste for dark material. Scorpio is unafraid of the shadowy side of life, and Starace Sainati was admired for powerful, emotionally searing performances.

Mercury, Neptune and Pluto, all in Taurus, fall in her sixth house of work and daily discipline, describing steady, patient craft. She trained in several companies, including those of Tina Di Lorenzo and Flavio Andò, and from 1900 to 1905 she worked in the company of the great actor Ermete Zacconi.

Uranus in Leo, in her ninth house of travel, describes adventurous journeys and sudden opportunities abroad. With Zacconi's company she toured South America.

Venus in Aries, in the fifth house of performance, adds passion and boldness to her performing, and Saturn in Aries, in the fourth house, suggests responsibilities and hardships in private life.

She acted in silent films directed by Amleto Palermi in the early 1920s and later appeared in about forty sound films from the 1930s to the 1950s, often in supporting roles. After the Second World War she returned to the stage with acclaimed performances in Thérèse Raquin and in García Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba, playing powerful matriarchs.

She died on August 4, 1958, in Bologna, at a retirement home for performers. The Gemini Sun in her seventh house tied her career to her husband's; the Cancer planets in her eighth house made her a queen of stage horror.