Musician

Orson Welles

Musician — born 1915-05-06 in Kenosha.

Born
May 6, 1915, 12:00, Kenosha
Birth time
Rodden XBirth time unknown — chart uses noon as placeholder.
Orson Welles's natal chart wheelNatal chart showing 10 planets across the twelve zodiac signs.House 11House 22House 33House 44House 55House 66House 77House 88House 99House 1010House 1111House 1212Venus at 11°34' AriesMars at 15°19' AriesSun at 15°07' TaurusMercury at 21°03' TaurusSaturn at 29°26' GeminiPluto at 0°38' CancerNeptune at 27°51' CancerUranus at 15°34' AquariusMoon at 21°32' AquariusJupiter at 20°48' Pisces

What an astrologer notices first

What sets Orson Welles' chart apart is the dynamic tension of the Sun square Moon aspect with the added flair of a Leo Ascendant. This combination suggests someone who is not only comfortable with contradictions but thrives on them, using them as a wellspring for creativity. The challenge of balancing practicality with innovation likely fueled a career that consistently pushed boundaries while remaining rooted in a deep appreciation for the craft. This chart reveals a performer who was both a steadfast artist and a bold innovator, a rare blend in the world of music.

The reading

Orson Welles, the musician born under a bright Taurus sun, is perhaps most intriguingly defined by the challenging Sun square Moon aspect. This suggests a life of inner tension between the desires of a stable artistic presence and the restless need for innovation. The Sun in Taurus, nestled in the ninth house, speaks to a person driven by a deep appreciation for artistry and craftsmanship, but the Moon's Aquarian placement in the sixth house hints at an emotional landscape marked by unpredictability and flashes of genius. The juxtaposition of Taurus's steady rhythm and Aquarius's avant-garde flair paints a picture of someone who could both comfort and surprise, likely leading to a career filled with moments of both enduring resonance and unexpected pivots.

Placement by placement

What each part of the chart shows

Sun in Taurus

The Sun in Taurus in the ninth house suggests a love for the sensory experiences music can offer, rooted in a philosophy that values beauty and tangible expressions of art. This placement often indicates a steady, reliable presence, one who builds their art with patience and dedication.

Moon in Aquarius

The Moon in Aquarius in the sixth house reflects a mind that thrives on innovation, likely manifesting in unusual or forward-thinking musical expressions. Emotionally, there is a detachment, with feelings often processed through the lens of intellect and community impact.

Mercury in Taurus

Mercury in Taurus, situated in the tenth house, suggests a communication style that is deliberate and considerate, with an emphasis on clarity and depth. This placement often leads to a career where words or music are crafted with precision and a focus on creating enduring works.

Venus in Aries

Venus in Aries in the eighth house indicates a passionate and intense approach to relationships and creativity. This placement often brings a fearless pursuit of love and art, marked by boldness and an eagerness to explore the depths of human experience.

Mars in Aries

Mars in Aries in the ninth house suggests a high-energy individual with a pioneering spirit, especially in artistic or philosophical pursuits. This placement is characterized by enthusiasm and a direct approach, often leading to leadership roles in creative domains.

Ascendant in Leo

A Leo Ascendant enhances the presence of charisma and self-expression, suggesting an outward demeanor that commands attention. This placement often indicates a natural performer, someone who is at ease in the spotlight and drawn to pursuits that allow for creative self-expression.

The pattern

How the chart maps to the life

In Orson Welles' chart, the interplay between his Taurus Sun and Aquarius Moon sets the stage for a life of both stability and unpredictability. The Sun in Taurus, with its grounding ninth house placement, suggests that his career as a musician was likely marked by a dedication to cultivating a rich, sensual tapestry of sound that resonates on a deep level. However, the square to the Moon in Aquarius introduces an element of tension and innovation, suggesting that his music likely surprised audiences with unexpected twists. This is further supported by Mars in Aries in the ninth house, which would have driven him to explore new horizons with vigor and passion. For instance, if he were known for pioneering a new genre or introducing a novel technique, this would be unsurprising given the chart's emphasis on originality and boldness. His Mercury in Taurus in the tenth house reinforces this with a communication style rooted in clarity and substance, creating works with the potential for long-lasting impact. Yet, the Leo Ascendant would ensure that all these elements were presented with flair, making him a captivating figure in the public eye, one who seamlessly blended traditional mastery with avant-garde creativity.

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Same date

Also born on May 6

Public figures sharing the same calendar date as Orson — same Sun degree band, same dominant life path, same date signature.

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Full chart data

All planetary positions

  • Sun15°07' TaurusH9
  • Moon21°32' AquariusH6
  • Mercury21°03' TaurusH10
  • Venus11°34' AriesH8
  • Mars15°19' AriesH9
  • Jupiter20°48' PiscesH8
  • Saturn29°26' GeminiH11
  • Uranus15°34' AquariusH6
  • Neptune27°51' CancerH12
  • Pluto0°38' CancerH11
  • North Node22°25' AquariusH6
  • Chiron21°35' PiscesH8
  • Lilith28°41' TaurusH10
  • South Node22°25' LeoH12

Questions people ask

Orson's birth chart, the questions people ask

  • Sun in Taurus is the placement doing that. Taurus is a fixed earth sign, which means its solar energy is oriented around ownership — not power in the abstract, but tangible possession of the thing being built. A Taurus Sun does not hand the canvas to someone else and walk away. It needs to feel the material directly. For Welles, this showed up as an almost compulsive need to direct, produce, write, and in some cases finance his own projects — because every layer of mediation between him and the final product felt like a loss. Mercury in Taurus reinforces this: his thinking was slow, thorough, and resistant to revision by outside parties. When studios cut his films, it was not just a professional insult. It registered as a physical violation of something he had built with his hands.

  • Leo Rising is the mechanism. The Rising sign is the face the world gets — the automatic presentation before the interior even engages — and Leo Rising presents as a performer, a center of gravity, someone who occupies a room by arriving in it. This is not vanity in the shallow sense. Leo Rising operates on the assumption that it has something worth showing, and it structures its public behavior around that assumption. Welles at twenty-five, directing and starring in Citizen Kane, is Leo Rising functioning at full capacity: the ambition is theatrical, the scale is theatrical, the self-belief is total. The Leo Rising also explains why he never fully retreated even when his career was in trouble. It is not a placement that knows how to become small.

  • Venus in Aries is the direct answer. Venus governs what a person is drawn to and how they pursue it, and in Aries, it pursues fast and without a long runway of consideration. Aries Venus gets attracted immediately, acts on the attraction immediately, and tends to lose interest once the chase phase is over and the relationship settles into routine. Welles married three times and had well-documented affairs throughout. That pattern is consistent with Venus in Aries: high initial intensity, genuine feeling, and then a restlessness once the novelty compresses. Mars in Aries sits alongside this Venus, which amplifies the appetite and shortens the patience. The combination is not incapable of love — it is incapable of the slow, maintenance-phase version of love that long partnerships require.

  • Leo Rising plus Sun in Taurus produces a specific combination: the instinct to perform is in the Rising, and the commitment to the performance is in the Sun. Leo Rising turns the public-facing self into a stage production automatically — it is not a decision, it is a default. But Sun in Taurus means that once Welles had constructed a version of himself for public consumption, he held it with fixed-sign stubbornness. He did not drop the persona between takes. Taurus Suns build an identity the way they build anything else — slowly, deliberately, and with the intention of keeping it. Every late-career interview, every talk show appearance, the same voice, the same cadences, the same grand theatrical weight. He had built the Orson Welles character and he was not going to dismantle it for anyone.

  • The chart does not separate those two things cleanly, and neither should we. Mercury in Taurus describes how he thought: methodically, sensorially, with a preference for concrete construction over abstract theorizing. This is not a Mercury that generates ideas at speed — it is a Mercury that works an idea until it is structurally sound. The War of the Worlds broadcast and Citizen Kane both show that pattern: meticulous formal construction, not spontaneous brilliance. The Leo Rising handled the self-promotion, and it did so effectively because Leo Rising genuinely believes in what it is selling. Moon in Aquarius adds the piece most people miss — an emotional detachment that let him observe audience psychology from a slight remove and calculate impact. The genius and the showmanship were running in parallel, not in competition.

  • This is where the chart creates real internal friction. Sun and Mercury in Taurus build slowly and need full ownership of the process — but Venus and Mars in Aries want to begin, want the ignition, want the first act energy. Here's what tends to happen when that combination runs a creative career: the Aries placements generate the appetite and the launch, and the Taurus placements take over with a perfectionism that resists any version of the work that feels incomplete or compromised. Add chronic underfunding — a practical consequence of his reputation for difficulty — and the Taurus Sun's need for total control becomes an obstacle rather than an asset. The Don Quixote footage sat unfinished for decades. That is not laziness. That is a fixed sign refusing to release something it cannot fully own.

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Orson Welles · May 6, 1915 · What May 6 means