posted June 07, 2009 06:16 AM            

Linda Goodman, Writer Turned Astrologer, Dies
By ROBERT MCG. THOMAS JR.
Published: October 25, 1995

Linda Goodman, whose down-to-earth insights into character traits were credited with bringing astrology out of the occult section and onto the best-seller lists with the 1968 publication of "Sun Signs," died on Saturday at Penrose Hospital in Colorado Springs. She was about 70 and lived in Cripple Creek.

The hospital said the cause was complications of diabetes.

It may have been "the dawning of the age of Aquarius," as the 1960's song put it, but until Mrs. Goodman, a one-time newspaper reporter and sometime radio writer who had picked up an interest in astrology from grocery store booklets, sat down at her typewriter, the rays had not caused a blink in the publishing industry.

Within months after an obscure house named Taplinger brought out "Sun Signs," in 1968, it had become the first book on astrology to make The New York Times Best-Seller List.

Since then, her agent, Arthur Klebanoff, said yesterday, "Sun Signs," and two follow-up volumes, "Love Signs," (1978) and "Star Signs," (1988) have sold more than 30 million copies in 15 languages and continue to sell some 200,000 copies a year.

The $2.3 million paid for the paperback rights to "Love Signs" set an industry record.

What set Mrs. Goodman's books apart was a combination of her sharp insights and her elegant, accessible style.

Writing in the first person and drawing on the lives of celebrities, historical figures and personal friends to illustrate her points, Mrs. Goodman sometimes seemed more psychologist than astrologer.

Whether your sweetheart's streak of, say, stubbornness, came from the stars or childhood experiences, Mrs. Goodman was a master in elaborating how it would play out against your own tendencies as a dreamer.

Mrs. Goodman, whose original name was Mary Alice Kemery, was born in Morgantown, W. Va., on a date she gave as April 19 in a year she would never disclose.

"I once asked my grandfather, and he wouldn't tell me either," her son Michael Goodman said yesterday. During an interview a few years ago, Mrs. Goodman was more forthcoming, putting her age "between 435 and 450."

The date made her a triple Aries, and Mrs. Goodman, a five-foot-or-so dynamo fit the astrological profile to a T. "She was pushy," her son said.

A writer since childhood, Mrs. Goodman worked as an itinerant newspaper reporter, radio writer and occasional broadcaster. After reading "Letters from Linda" on a radio program, her son said, she adopted the name Linda.

Mrs. Goodman, whose early marriage to William Snyder ended in divorce, began writing "Sun Signs" in New York after an announcing job that had been promised her second husband, Sam Goodman, fell through.

Although her astrology has been called textbook as opposed to mystical, Mrs. Goodman developed a distinct mystic streak. "Star Signs," for example, draws on both numerology and reincarnation.

And when the New York authorities ruled that her 18-year-old daughter, Sarah Snyder, had committed suicide in 1973, Mrs. Goodman, citing her daughter's astrological chart among other evidence, refused to believe that the body identified by her husband was Sarah's.

She later spent so much time trying to find her daughter that she was forever running out of money, at one point living for several months on the steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral.

posted June 08, 2009 01:54 PM            

On the angelfire link it states

quote:

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She did not respect the life of the unborn child

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posted June 23, 2009 10:32 PM            

Thanks for posting all of these interesting info!

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(¸.·´ (¸.·´ *SilverStone.·:*¨¨*:·..·:*¨¨*:·..·:*

Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year....
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

posted July 01, 2009 03:08 AM            

Ariefairy... thanks for the link you posted...