Hollywood insiders say dating Jack Nicholson “is like being with the king.” That being the case, it was a big step up for Lara Flynn Boyle when she snagged the aging super star. Though you’ve seen Lara as the naughty but nice girl-next-door in the surreal cult soap opera Twin Peaks, and as Helen Gamble, the feisty DA in the Emmy Award-winning drama The Practice, her celebrity skyrocketed when she appeared on the arm of Jack Nicholson at the 1999 Emmy Awards.

Jack was “completely charmed” by Lara when he spied her at a Hollywood bash in June of 1999. Pals say “he acts like a teenager in love” and “they have never seen him so affectionate with anyone he’s dated.” And Lara, well, what young actress wouldn’t welcome the advances of a king, especially if he personified everything she desired and found sexy.

In the magical world of Hollywood, life and art melt into one, glamour reigns, romantic dreams come true, chemistry matters and age makes little difference in casting or in the romantic lives of the stars. Through the lens of astrology it seems more like Hollywood magic than coincidence that Jack and Lara met when they did. Their scripts seem to have been perfectly cast by a universe that is often willing to provide a co-star who will precisely portray the inner workings of our life’s current drama.

Hot for Sexy Seniors

Lara Flynn Boyle was born March 24, 1970 in Davenport, Iowa. She has an Aries Sun opposite Uranus in Libra. The Sun is the primary masculine energy in the horoscope. It is strongly tied to our relationship with father, and later to other important male figures. When Uranus aspects the Sun, it often indicates an unusual, unexpected or traumatic childhood experience with an important authority figure which profoundly affects the developing sense of self. Lara’s parents split when she was six years old. She grew up fatherless. This experience inclined Lara to see relationships as risky and predisposed her to excitement and non-conformity in her affairs with the opposite sex.

Lara also has Mars conjunct Saturn in Taurus, the sign of creature comforts. Saturn represents the mature, responsible adult who sets limits and draws boundaries. In this context, Saturn is the father figure. Mars, in a woman’s horoscope, describes the type of man who ignites her passions and desires. Mars and Saturn together indicate that Lara’s desire for a father figure often defines her relationships with men. She is passionate for stable, financially secure, no-nonsense, fatherly types who have attained maturity and worldly success. Lara finds wealth and age both sexy and a potent aphrodisiac.

Saturn, the Old King, Returns Home

Each time a planet returns to its original birth position is significant. At age 29, when Saturn returns home for the first time, issues related to Saturn will be revisited. This gives people experiencing a Saturn return an opportunity to put the past behind them and step forward into true adulthood ready to assume responsibility for their own life. In May of 1999, Lara was having her first Saturn return. It’s not unusual for any single person to want marriage at this time, but when Lara met Jack, she was also revisiting her desire for a man who would offer some sense of security, comfort and stability. It seems Saturn returned home in the guise of Jack Nicholson, the aging King of Hollywood.

The Aging King

Jack Nicholson, born April 22, 1937, at 11:00 am in Neptune, New Jersey, has a Taurus Sun. He radiates the solid down-to-earth stability, wealth and creature comfort life Lara finds irresistible. Additionally, the aging Nicholson has Venus, the planet of love, in the forever-young sign of Aries, revealing his ideal vision of femininity and explaining his penchant for love affairs with much younger women. Lara has the Sun, Mercury and Venus in Aries, leaving little doubt that Nicholson was smitten by her youthful zest, feisty independence and “in your face” femininity.

Yes, Lara is feisty and independent, but her Moon is in Libra, the sign of marriage, and it’s marriage that would make Lara’s heart sing. While marriage-shy Nicholson has Mars, a man’s sexual prowess, in Sagittarius, the sign of the bachelor, it’s positioned in the Fifth House, the house of romance. He really is the perennial bachelor and romantic rogue life has proven him to be. True to instinct (Mars), when Nicholson read a magazine interview in which Lara expressed her heart-felt desire to marry, his knee-jerk reaction was to call an end to the affair. However, the much-publicized breakup was very short lived because Lara is not romance as usual for Nicholson, who is under the intoxicating influence of transiting Neptune.

Love and Longing

In early 1999, transiting Neptune, the planet of dreams, illusion and romantic love, entered Nicholson’s Seventh House, the house of close relationships, and moved to square his Taurus Sun. This transit softened Nicholson, and inspired a longing for that perfect other. In June, as transiting Jupiter, the planet of good fortune, fused with his Venus in Aries, romance was definitely in the air. It was predictable that someone would catch his eye and that someone was Lara Flynn Boyle. Nicholson had fallen in love during a Neptune transit, and when that happens, you don’t just love, you are enthralled and enchanted by the beloved.

A Stubborn Old Bull

Nicholson has Mercury, the planet of communication and thought, in Taurus. Put simply, he’s bull-headed. During most of 2001, Uranus, the planet of rebellion, will square Nicholson’s Mercury. You can bet there will be some surprising revelations that will rock Jack’s world and rattle his thinking. But it appears to be Lara who is faced with making a choice. In late July, as transiting Saturn, planet of lessons and responsibility, begins squaring Lara’s North Node, symbolizing her destiny and what she’s working toward in life, she will feel stuck in the moment and compelled to make some serious decisions about her life’s direction.

Also in July, transiting Jupiter (expansion, optimism) will square her Sun. A more confident Lara may no longer be able to restrain herself, and may issue an ultimatum. However, by Christmas 2001, as transiting Pluto (purging and rejuvenation) begins to fuse with Nicholson’s North Node, fate will step in. Like Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Nicholson will come face to face with the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future. His life will take an emotional, dramatic and fated turn that might very well include Lara Flynn Boyle.

Notes

The Lunar Nodes form an important axis in the horoscope. The South Node represents past habit patterns and the North Node represents the direction of future growth. When slower-moving planets form transiting aspects to the Lunar Nodes, there is a fated quality to relationships and to events taking place within those relationships. For more information on the Lunar Nodes, see "A New Look at the Moon's Nodes" by Kevin Burk.