IN THE EARLY 1930S, THE British astrologer Gabriel Dee recorded a series for Pathé News in which she offered life advice to viewers based on their zodiac signs. Dee, who also read fortunes and discerned personality from a person’s eyes, recommended professions for—and discussed the flaws of—members of each zodiac sign.
As the film above shows, she believed that Cancerians ought to become dairy farmers, milkmen, potters, glass blowers, zookeepers, dog breeders, or gardeners. But if none of those positions were available, they should definitely work in “fishy job[s],” especially ones that involved “bathing in every shape and form.”
In other films, each devoted to an individual zodiac sign, Dee diagnosed Gemini as being the type to “use the phone volubly,” and recommended they become clerical workers, airplane pilots, or train conductors because they are so high-strung. Libra is “essentially a marrying sign,” according to Dee. “Very few persons born at this time of the year remain unwed and very often they marry for the second and even the third time.” Virgos are great at weaving, but quite fussy. If you’re a Virgo, you probably “plague people living around you by making them tidier than they want to be.” Sagittarians? They love to travel, and are best equipped to work as financiers, horse breeders and racers, or members of “the woolen trade in all its branches.”