Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley was born a twin. In the two-room house his father had built in Tupelo, Mississippi, his brother Jesse Garon was stillborn about half an hour before him, and Elvis grew up as the only child of Gladys and Vernon Presley, the focus of his mother's fierce devotion. They were poor, and they stayed poor until he was a teenager in Memphis, where the family moved in 1948.

He was born at 4:35 a.m. on January 8, 1935, a time recorded on his birth certificate, and the predawn hour puts Sagittarius on the Ascendant. Sagittarius is the sign of exuberance, freedom and excess, a sign that loves the big gesture. As a first impression it reads as larger than life. That was the effect the young Elvis had on television audiences in 1956: the hips, the sneer, the sheer physical joy of the performance, which scandalized parents and thrilled their children.

His Sun is in Capricorn in the second house, joined by Mercury and Venus, also in Capricorn. Capricorn is ambitious and status-conscious, the sign of the self-made climb; the second house governs money, possessions and what a person values. Three Capricorn planets in the house of money describe someone for whom material security carried enormous meaning, and the boy from the two-room house spent his fortune accordingly. He bought Graceland in 1957, and became known for giving away Cadillacs, sometimes to strangers.

The story moved fast. At Sun Records in 1954 he recorded "That's All Right," a blues number sped up and transformed. RCA bought his contract the next year, and "Heartbreak Hotel" made him a national star in 1956. Then came the hits, the army, service in Germany from 1958 to 1960, the long run of Hollywood films, the triumphant 1968 comeback special and, from 1969, the Las Vegas years.

His Moon is at the beginning of Pisces in the third house. Pisces is devotional and boundlessly sensitive, and astrologers associate it with music and spirituality. The third house governs early life, siblings and the voice. Elvis loved gospel above all other music, and he sang it throughout his life, sometimes for hours, long after the shows were over. The lost twin, a sibling in the most painful sense, sits in that house too.

Mars, the planet of drive and desire, is in Libra in the tenth house, which governs public life. Libra brings grace and attractiveness; in the tenth it points to a public image built on physical appeal and charm. Elvis's career rested on exactly that, until the later years, when his health declined. He died at Graceland on August 16, 1977, at 42.

The Sagittarius rising made him a spectacle; the Capricorn planets made him an empire. The Pisces Moon, the one that kept singing gospel after the shows were over, may have been closest to who he was.