Astrologer radio star

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32568, 30 March 1971, Page 6

Astrologer radio star

(New York Times News Service, through N.Z.P.A.)

PARIS. j In the last four months, a rotund, 57-year-old astrologer, Madame Soleil, has become the biggest radio success in French history. Even President Pompidou has taken note of her fame. In reply to a question at a news conference he said: Im notxMadame Soleil. How can I predict the date of the next European Security Council.”

Madame Soleil, who is on the air every day from noon to 2 pun., has not gained this prominence by applying her astrological knowledge and down-to-earth advice to matters of State. Her stock in trade is her ability to field questions, mostly from women, about family problems.

Problems such as:— "My husband left the priesthood 30 years ago. Now he’s 76 and sick but is still running after other women. Should I leave him?” "Should my mother sell her chicken farm and go into another line of business?” “Our son-in-law’s utterly impossible—we can’t abide him. Do you see a divorce in the stars?”

GREAT SUCCESS Madame Soleil is the pride and joy of her radio station. Europe Number One, whose directors are still dazzled by the thousands of telephone calls that come in for her during the course of her twohour programmes. The first hint of her drawing power came during her first week on the air when calls completely blocked the station’s switchboard.

' Now the station tries to ) hold back the flood by an- . nouncing that only callers ' whose numbers end in a spe- ) cified pair of digits will be j accepted, hut the switchboard ' continues to be swamped.

) In contrast to tile United > States, France is still in the ' age of radio. There are only ) two television channels, they ) go on at 2 pm. and confine themselves largely to educa- ) tionai programmes until the j evening. Europe Number One is one > of France’s three principal ) radio stations. ) SIMPLE SHOW ' The format of the show is ) a model of broadcasting simp- ) licity: a quiver of extra-terres-trial music and then the anI nouncer introduces the star. ) Quickly the first call is put through (in the previous hour the calls are screened, people chosen and astrological charts drawn up). Madame Soleil glances over the caller’s chart and dispenses brisk, common-sense advice in a voice that is warm reassuring, kind. But she brooks no nonsense and is not above an occasional rap on the knuckles. "Ah, so the boy’s mother is too easygoing with him,” she says to a grandmother. “A good hard slap from time to time does a boy a world of good.” “Your husband beats you when drunk? Now see here, the very next time he tries that, you take the kids and run to the police station. Get him locked up. And get an affidavit from your doctor if he’s marked you up.” Sometimes the staff—the

announcer, two assistants who draw Up the charts, the sound engineer, the college student who puts through the calls, and the girl in charge of the music—cannot help laughing over the calls, but Madame Soleil takes each and every one seriously. Chunky and solid, in a neat black wool dress with a purple crocheted shawl draped round her shoulders, earphones clamped to her head, she crouches forward, concentrating on the voice coming over the line.

“That voice, I focus utterly on every syllable, every nuance in that voice,” says Madame Soleil. "Oh, I have their chart to clue me in, but it’s their voice I listen to. That’s where it all is. I try to feel their whole personality through the voice, and then I try to give them the confidence and strength they’re asking me for. "Many of the people who call in are extremely lonely people—old women to whom nobody pays any more attention.

“I have a tremendous excess of maternal energy, and I feel it’s my mission in life to use it to help all those people who have no-one else to turn to,” she continues. “WAY OUT”

“They turn round and round with their problems. I just try to give them a way out. I try to give them that little push so they can act for themselves.” She was bom Germaine Soleil on July 18, 1913, and realised in her early 20s, when she first became interested in the stars, that great things were in store for her. She does a swift monologue about the position of Neptune in relation to Jupiter in relation to the sun, and it all comes out that Europe Number One did the right tiling to latch on to her. “I’ve become a mythic figure to a lot of people now. In the past they’d have prayed to Saint Anthony of Padua; now they call to Madame Soleil.” Her own way of life has not been drastically altered by her fame. Although she is chauffeurdriven to and from the studio, she continues to live in her ground-floor apartment at the rear of a courtyard in the unfashionable Left Bank fifteenth arrondissement. She puts her money aside for her daughter and four grandchildren.

Officers. Aranui Townswomen’s Guild officers: President, Mrs F. W. Derbyshire; secretary, Mrs C. j. Williams; treasurer, Mrs G. Torrance; committee, Mesdames K. Bennison, O. Campbell, T. Clarkson M. Fletcher, E. Fox, O. Harris, M. Hodgson. O. Keen, B. Kiddey, M. Megglnson, D. Ransley. ,