Difference between revisions of "Didion, Joan"

Latest revision as of 18:12, 29 November 2012

Joan Didion
natal chart (Placidus)
natal chart English style (Equal houses)

Joan Didion

Name	Didion, Joan Gender: F
born on	5 December 1934 at 17:55 (= 5:55 PM )
Place	Sacramento, California, 38n35, 121w30
Timezone	PST h8w (is standard time)
Data source	BC/BR in hand Rodden Rating AA Collector: Wilsons
Astrology data	13°16' 04°43 Asc. 01°31'

[edit] Biography

American novelist, journalist, and screenwriter. Her first book, "Run River," was published 1/30/1964; she also wrote for magazines as a free-lancer. She wrote best sellers, "Play It As It Lays" in 1970, and "A Book Of Common Prayer", in 1977. She collaborated on screenplays, "Panic In Needle Park" in 1971, and "A Star Is Born" in 1975.

A fifth-generation Californian, Didion was born in Sacramento and raised in the great central plain of California, an area she often describes nostalgically in her work. As an undergraduate English major at UC Berkeley she won an essay sponsored by Vogue magazine. As a result, Vogue hired her, and for eight years she lived in New York City, while she rose to associate features

editor. She wrote her first novel, "Run River," in 1963.

On 1/30/1964 she married John Gregory Dunne and they returned to California, where they remained for twenty-five years, collaborating on screenplays and meeting everyone in the film business. Working as a writing team, she and Dunne took eight years and 27 drafts to script "Up Close and Personal," the screenplay about newswoman Jessica Savitch. On March 3, 1966 they adopted an infant daughter whom they named Quintana Roo.

Intensely individualistic, she makes a point of avoiding psychoanalysis and women's groups.

Didion focused her trenchant powers of observation in two documentary, book-length studies: "Salvador," 1983 and "Miami," 1987. In 1996 she published the political thriller "The Last Thing He Wanted," her first novel in 12 years, having had devoted her time to screenplays.

Didion’s husband, John Gregory Dunne, died on December 30, 2003 of a heart attack. Five days prior their only daughter, photographer Quintana Roo Dunne Michael, had been hospitalized with pneumonia and fell into a coma from septic shock. Quintana Roo recovered but suffered a brain hematoma shortly thereafter, followed months later by a bout of acute pancreatitis. Didion in her grief for her husband, and in an attempt to cope with her daughter's illness, began to write "The Year of Magical Thinking" on October 4, 2004 and it was published a year later in October 2005. A few months prior to its release, her only child Quintana Roo died on August 26, 2005 in New York City of complications from an abdominal infection.

Link to Wikipedia biography

[edit] Events

• Family : Adopted a child 1977 (Adopted 11-yr-old daughter)

• Work : Published/ Exhibited/ Released 1996 (First novel in 12 years)

• Death of Mate 30 December 2003 (of heart attack)
  chart Placidus Equal_H.

• Death of Child 26 August 2005 (Daughter Qunitana Roo)
  chart Placidus Equal_H.

• Work : Published/ Exhibited/ Released October 2005 ("The Year of Magical Thinking")
  chart Placidus Equal_H.

[edit] Source Notes

B.C. in hand from the Wilsons (Same in Contemporary American Horoscopes, Gauquelin Book of American Charts)

[edit] Categories

• Family : Childhood : Order of birth (First of two)

• Family : Relationship : Mate - Noted (John Gregory Dunne)

• Family : Parenting : Foster, Step, or Adopted Kids (One adopted daughter)

• Vocation : Writers : Fiction

• Vocation : Writers : Magazine/ newsletter

• Vocation : Writers : Playwright/ script

• Notable : Book Collection : Culture Collection