Robert Downey Jr.: From Prison to Iron Man, the Timing of a Comeback
Prison in 1999. Iron Man in 2008. An Oscar in 2024. Scroll: the same house holds his worst year and his best one.
Her birth chart ID
Robert Downey Jr.
4 April 19651:10 pmNew York
- ☉︎Sun Aries
- ACRising Leo
- ☽︎Moon Taurus
His fall and comeback in 8 dates
Scroll down, the years slide by.
29 March 1993
Oscar nomination for Chaplin. The most gifted actor of his generation.
23 June 1996
Arrested in Malibu, with drugs and an unloaded gun.
August 1999
Three years in a California state prison, in Corcoran. He serves about one.
24 April 2001
A new arrest. He is fired from Ally McBeal, the hottest show on TV.
2003
Sober, he says. Nobody in Hollywood wants to insure him yet.
September 2006
Marvel casts him as Iron Man.
2 May 2008
Iron Man opens. From 2013 to 2015 he is the highest paid actor in the world.
10 March 2024
Oscar for Oppenheimer.
His real chart
A star built on one tense line.
Leo rising
Leo rising
A Sun in Aries with Venus and Mercury in the 9th house. Fire everywhere: a born performer.
His 10th house
His Moon and Jupiter sit in Taurus, in the house of career. The public loves him.
The tense line
Saturn in Pisces in the 8th house of crisis, exactly opposite Mars, Uranus and Pluto in Virgo. Limits against explosion. Remember this Saturn.
1996 and 2008
12 years apart, the same house
At 31 and at 43, his profection year lands on Pisces, his 8th house, where Saturn sits. Eleven weeks after his 31st birthday: the arrest. Four weeks after his 43rd: Iron Man. Crisis, then rebirth after crisis.
The sky around his chart
Uranus lands on his Saturn. Then Saturn comes home.
10 October 2006
10 October 2006
Uranus, planet of liberation, sits on his Saturn and exactly opposite his natal Uranus: his Uranus opposition. Marvel had just cast him as Iron Man.
10 March 2024, Oscar night
Saturn is back 1° from its birth place. His second Saturn return is exact nine days later. Thirty years earlier, the first one opened his fall.
His real chapters
A 19 year chapter: Chaplin, the fall, and the road back.
Zodiacal releasing cuts a life into chapters, one sign each, counted from the Lot of Spirit, for career. His is in Cancer. Scroll to live them.
Virgo, from 16 August 2008, the sign of his Lot of Fortune and of his house of money. Still running.
- 1993Chaplin
- 1999Prison
- 2008Iron Man
- 2013Highest paid
- 2024Oscar
Three layers, one comeback
2005 to 2009: watch the clocks meet.
Uranus
Uranus opposition, on his Saturn
Releasing
Loosing of the bond, from Spirit
Profection
Age 43: 8th house, Pisces, like 1996
2 May 2008 From the casting to the release of Iron Man, the three layers follow one another without a gap. The house of his worst year becomes the house of his comeback.
A hard house is not a sentence. It is a room you can live in differently.
Your turn: when does your year land on your Saturn?
- 1
Find your profection year: your age divided by 12, keep the remainder, add 1.
- 2
Find the house where your Saturn sits, and note the ages when your profection lands there.
- 3
Check your Uranus opposition, around 40 to 42.
Your 2027 agenda lays this out for you: your profection year, Saturn's path through your houses and your best days, month by month.
Your 2027, from your birth chart
Want this for your own year?
Your personalized 2027 agenda, day by day, from your birth chart: your strong days, the planets that cross your chart, every Moon already on the right day. A PDF to print, a lovely Christmas gift too.
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Questions people ask
When did Robert Downey Jr. go to prison?
He was sentenced in August 1999 to three years at a California state prison in Corcoran and was released in August 2000, after about a year. He was arrested again on 25 November 2000 and 24 April 2001, and was fired from Ally McBeal after the second arrest.
What is Robert Downey Jr.'s rising sign?
Leo rising, with the birth time of 1:10 pm on 4 April 1965 in New York. His Sun, Venus and Mercury are in Aries in the 9th house, his Moon and Jupiter in Taurus in the 10th, and Saturn in Pisces in the 8th, opposite Mars, Uranus and Pluto in Virgo.
What does astrology show about Robert Downey Jr.'s comeback?
1996 (his arrest) and 2008 (Iron Man) are both 8th house years in his chart, in Pisces, where his Saturn sits. His Iron Man casting in 2006 came with his Uranus opposition, while transiting Uranus also sat on his Saturn. Zodiacal releasing from Spirit reached the loosing of the bond in March 2007, and his Oscar in March 2024 fell nine days before his second Saturn return.
Related AstroBites
Keep reading: Career
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Martha Stewart: From Billionaire to Prison and Back, Read in Her Chart
Britney Spears: 13 Years of Conservatorship and Her Freedom, Read in Her Chart
What Job Were You Born For? 3 Clues in Your Birth Chart, Seen in Warhol, Einstein and Ronaldo
Photos, Wikimedia Commons: Robert Downey Jr. (Philip Romano, CC BY-SA 4.0); Steve Jobs (Matthew Yohe, CC BY-SA 3.0); Martha Stewart (Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0); Britney Spears (Glenn Francis, CC BY-SA 4.0); Andy Warhol (Bernard Gotfryd, Public domain); Albert Einstein (Oren Jack Turner, Public domain); Cristiano Ronaldo (Bryan Berlin, CC BY-SA 4.0)