Larry King, arguably the most famous mouth in modern America, has been around the block a few times. Often the butt of Methusaleh jokes on Leno and Letterman late-night shows, he has nonetheless strutted his stuff by marrying seven women eight times, and fathering five children. Never mind the Energizer bunny, this guy is still humming along.
Larry King was born Lawrence Zeiger on November 19, 1933, at 10:38 AM in Brooklyn, NY. Note that the two horoscopes below (one North Indian, the other western) are both shown with positions in the sidereal zodiac.
Larry King’s life has been one big roller-coaster ride. A brother died just before he was born, and when he was 10, his father died of a heart attack. Larry went from excellent student to troublemaker who spent all his time watching baseball and listening to radio talk shows, graduating high school by the skin of his teeth. He moved to Miami at age 23 for a menial job at a radio station, where he caught a lucky break to begin work as a disk jockey. He went on to do sports commentary and celebrity interviews at several radio and TV stations, and launched a writing career with Miami’s biggest newspapers.
With good times came bad times. Sports was his passion, and sports betting his near downfall. By age 38, he was $352,000 in debt, and had to totally reorganize his life before someone else did it for him in a brutal fashion. He suffered a heart attack in 1987, later had a quintuple bypass surgery, wrote two books about heart disease, and subsequently went on to become a major champion for the Heart Foundation and other charities.
Marriages came and went in quick succession: high-school sweetheart Freda Millar (1 year), Annette Kaye (briefly), Playboy bunny Alene Akins (2 years), Mary Sutphin (3 years), the bunny again (5 years), math teacher Sharon Lepore (7 years), businesswoman Julie Alexander (3 years) and singer/TV host Shawn Southwick (12 years and counting).
Larry King’s chart has several prominent yogas, none of them easy. Most obvious is the Kala Sarpa Yoga, where the Rahu-Ketu axis in houses 3/9 divides the chart in two – all planets in one half, the other half empty. Kala Sarpa promises an up-and-down life. House placement of the nodes suggests one set of themes. His brother (3H) died just before Larry was born, and his father (9H) died when he was still quite young. Other themes arise from the nodal dispositors: a strong Saturn in the second house delivers oratory, money and substance abuse, while Sun in the twelfth generates sexual heat and charity.
Papa-Kartari Yoga forms with malefics in the first, second and twelfth houses, thus concentrating a malign influence on the ascendant. This can bequeath a libidinous and self-destructive nature to the character, and impose a heavy weight (in the form of illness, accidents and surgeries) for the physical body to bear.
Although technically not a yoga, Larry King also has a nasty case of Kuja Dosha. This occurs when Mars is found in houses 1, 2, 4, 7, 8 or 12 from the ascendant, the Moon or Venus. In Larry’s chart, Mars is in the first house relative to all three. Conventional wisdom says, don’t marry until after the age of 28; with a case like this, it’s more like, good luck with marriage at all.
Finally, a subtle but significant Viparita Yoga sits in the ascendant. Traditional definition says Viparita occurs when lords of trikasthanas (6H-8H-12H) are found within other trikasthanas, and when all three trik lords are found in such a configuration, a full mala occurs. A less well-known definition is when two or more trik lords are associated in a house which is neither occupied nor aspected by any other planet.
In Larry King’s case, we have the perfect example of a high-potency Viparita Yoga. Sixth lord Venus, eighth lord Moon and twelfth lord Mars all converge in the ascendant. That ascendant contains nothing other than these three trik lords, nor receives the aspect of any other planet. It’s the jyotishical equivalent of “three wrongs make a right.”
In Larry King’s case, it gives him great charisma. First, he’s a virile guy with Moon and Mars, lords of 8H and 12H, creating a passion combo of the first order in his ascendant. Second, he’s a survivor of multiple trauma (8L Moon in the lagna) on several different levels, with Venus and Mars coming together to lay struggle (6H) and surrender (12H) on the rack of his human existence.
But for a guy who’s 77, he’s looking pretty good. If that’s the rack he’s meant to be tortured on, he’s getting it pretty much on his own terms!
