A Mythic Life : Gene Tierney

Gene Tierney

On 6 June 1943, a conjunction of Sun with Saturn in Gemini squared Gene Tierney's natal Jupiter in Virgo opposing natal Moon conjunct Uranus in Pisces.

At some stage in June 1943, brushing aside advice to not attend, Gene would make her only appearance at the Hollywood Canteen.  There she would shake hands with a woman serving in the military, who brushing aside the rules of her medical quarantine, would infect her 'favourite actress' with rubella virus.

Gene Tierney was in the first-to-second trimester of pregnancy with her child Antoinette Daria Cassini, who would be born premature on 15 October 1943, weighing less than 4lbs and needing a total blood transfusion. Daria was born partially blind, entirely deaf, severely retarded and spent the majority of her life within institutionalized care. Daria's father, Oleg Cassini, "King of Bridal" would pick up the tab for the most part.  Howard Hughes would prove himself a kind, generous and loyal friend to Gene.

Daria Cassini died just before her 67th birthday on September 11 2010.  She is survived by her youngest sister, Tina; two nieces and two nephews, and six grandnieces and nephews.

The argument continues between the anti-vaccination league of mothers, who fear their children may develop autism, and the Department for Public Health & Safety who are advised by expert microbiologists and immunologists.

Gene Tierney wrote of her anguish over Daria's fate in her autobiography 'Self-Portrait' and her own eventual decline into mental illness, delusions and emotional collapse and the popular treatments of the 1950s.  Treatments that my own mother endured in 1950s Australia.

I recall how as a child I had a prominent vaccination scar on my upper arm that I was self-conscious about because the children at primary school would tease me about it: like it was a witches mark.  I don't know if I had an adverse reaction to my baby/early childhood vaccinations.  I have no idea what medications my mother, who had manic depression, was taking whilst pregnant with me. 

There just wasn't the awareness then of the hazards and risks with pharmaceuticals.  Those were the days when medical science was still figuring things out.  The doctors told Gene Tierney that there was no risk to her child-in-utero from the bout of rubella she had contracted.  Maybe the doctors didn't want to dash Gene's hopes. 

The fact is, if they had told her the truth, had told her there was an 85% chance her child would be born severely disabled, then Gene and Oleg could have considered their options.  Terminating the pregnancy on medical grounds being one of them.

Oleg Cassini called his first wife the "unluckiest lucky woman in the world". 

Gene Tierney filmed 'The Ghost and Mrs Muir" not long after being  encouraged to place her first-born daughter, Daria, into care.  That movie is a perennial favourite of mine.  How hard, and Hollywood-cruel, must it have been for Gene to play the mother of young daughter (Natalie Wood) in a chocolate-box perfect story of female independance in the late 19th century.

Back then it was felt that the best practice in the event of personal crisis was to "keep busy to take your mind off things".  Gene Tierney was kept so busy in the early 50s that she lost her mind completely.

We can only hope that 'best practice' has gotten a whole lot better in the 21st Century.  Now, more than at any other time, is it essential for people and families experiencing extreme personal crises to shield themselves against the inevitable pathologizing of emotional responses that are appropriate to the life circumstances which have altered.

Being touted as one of the most beautiful women of her time and then giving birth to an 'imperfect' child was a solid shattering of any notions Gene had of living the fairy-tale life with Count Cassini.

When the gods come calling, nothing prepares you for the form in which they'll arrive.