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Book Excerpt from
The Little Giant Encyclopedia of Numerology
by Daniel Heydon
14 AND SEX
“A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages”.
(from Stairs to the Roof)
--Tennessee Williams
(Thomas Lanier Williams) ,14 soul urge
A myth that relates to the number 14 and the letter N, the 14th letter of the alphabet, dates back to Greek mythology. Souls awaiting reincarnation that had misused the principles linked to 14 in a past life drank from the waters of Lethe and as a result lost all memory of the wrongs that they had committed in past lives. Later, when they were reincarnated, they tended to repeat the very same mistakes that got them into trouble in the first place.
Just as 14 is said to be overly concerned with the five senses, many 14s are especially prone to make mistakes where sex is concerned. Some 14s have lost track of the sacredness of sex and have wrongly interpreted sex laws. Others are love 'em and leave 'em types who meet their biggest challenges in life through letting their sex lives run (or ruin) their lives. Often, they leave in their wake a host of broken-hearted lovers.
14s have trouble learning from their experiences. Indeed, it is usually the jilted lover who learns the very lessons that 14 should have learned. To be involved with some 14s is like having a date with karma. Maybe you don’t deserve to have your feelings toyed with, your heart shattered, and your life devastated (unless, of course, you were a 14 in a former life and are now learning how the shoe feels on the other foot.) Too often, a 14 willy-nilly goes off to a new conquest never even thinking about the pain and suffering he or she caused another. But that is par for the course, for many 14s simply do not take responsibilities for their actions. Talk about cold. For reasons like the above, some 14s are considered to be femme fatales.
Marlene Dietrich
It was this kind of 14 that Marlene Dietrich was called upon to play in her early film career. Indeed, she defined the role of femme fatale for movie audiences the world over during the 30s. Maria Magdalena Dietrich was perfectly cast, as her birth name adds up to 14 and she was born on December 27, 1901 with a 14 life path.
As critic Jim Ridley has noted,legendary Lili Marlene, in her first major film, The Blue Angel (1930), established a pattern that would be repeated with variations from film to film. Whether on purpose or not, she would always be a heartbreaker. The men who pursue Dietrich’s characters in her early films end up dead, ruined, or made fools of — but as she said in Shanghai Express (1932), “It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily.”
The Not-So-Private Life of a Screen Goddess.
John Wayne called her “the most intriguing woman I’ve ever known”. However, he ended their affair in 1945 with the remark “never liked being part of a stable.” Legendary filmmaker Josef von Sternberg, a one-time lover of Marlene, once said, “ Dietrich is something that never existed before and may never exist again. That’s a woman.” Ernest Hemingway said of her: “If she had nothing more than her voice she could break your heart with it. But she has that beautiful body and the timeless loveliness of her face.”
The thirty letters between Ernest Hemingway written between 1949 – 1958, which were donated to the JFK Memorial library, will be made public in 2007. However, Marlene said she never slept with her good friend “Papa”, but she was very proud of the fact that she had slept with three members of the Kennedy clan, Joseph P. Kennedy and his sons, Joe Kennedy Jr., and JFK.
Screenshot of Marlene Dietrich from the theatrical trailer of the flm Blue Angel, 1930.
Marlene was bi-sexual and had love affairs with various women as well, including Edith Piaf and Barbara Stanwyck. In July 1932, Greta Garbo and her girl friend, screenwriter Mercedes De Acosta, had a lovers’ quarrel, and Garbo went home to Sweden, leaving Acosta heartbroken and alone in California – but not for long, for soon after she began a torrid romance with none other, than Marlene. This affair lasted until Garbo made up with her estranged lover eight months later. However, Acosta would always remain deeply attached to Marlene.
Although married only once (to Rudolf Sieber) Marlene had innumerable romantic relationships. Known for her ”bedroom eyes” in high school, she had her first affair with her violin teacher at age 16. Her last affair with a man was with composer Burt Bacharach, a relationship that began when Marlene was age 57 and ended at age 62. At age 70, she was still involved with her last female lover, singer Marti Stevens. In between these relationships, she had countless lovers – both male and female. Below is a partial list.
From A to Z - the Lovers of Lili Marlene
Brian Aherne, Burt Bacharach, Cecil Beaton, George Bernard Shaw, Yul Brynner, Colette, Ronald Coleman, Gary Cooper, Lili Damita, Mercedes De Acosta, Robert Donat, Kirk Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Eddie Fisher, Jean Gabin, John Gilbert, Howard Hughes, Joseph P. Kennedy, JFK, Burt Lancaster, Fritz Lang, James M. Gavin, Erich Maria Remarque, Burgess Meredith, Edward R. Murrow, George S. Patton Jr., Edith Piaf, George Raft, William Saroyan, Frank Sinatra, Barbara Stanwyck, Marti Stevens, Adlai Stevenson, James Stewart, Mike Todd, Josef von Sternberg, Raf Vallone, John Wayne, Orson Welles, Michael Wilding, and et. al.
In the 1950s, in a discussion with her husband Rudi Sieber and cinematographer Stefan Lorant about her many liaisons, Dietrich asked:
“‘Who do you think I loved more than anyone else? ’ Jean Gabin? suggested Rudi. ‘Gabin, yes’, she replied. ‘Certainly, Gabin.’ And in 1963, when …Robert Kennedy met Dietrich … and asked who was the most attractive man she had ever met, she replied, ‘Jean Gabin. ’”.
--Donald Spoto, Blue Angel: The Life of Marlene
Dietrich (New York: Doubleday, 1992, p.169)
But what about her many other lovers? … and why so many? …and what did they mean to her? We can gain some insights about these matters from her grandson, David Riva who said, "She would fall in love with a song, with Paris, or a beautiful woman or a powerful man, and she would pour all her passion in that direction for as long as she wanted to." (Variety, May 26, 2004).
Marlene summed up her life as follows, “ I have a child, and I have made a few people happy. That is all.”
Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams relaxing in Italy, 1956 Photo by Roloff Beny
Not everyone who has 14 prominent in their names or birth dates is sexually promiscuous. Some 14s are sexy, but inhibited. The 4 in 14 can indicate inhibitions, guilt, or other sexual problems that can impede the freedom and joy in sexual expression that the number 5 promises. Karma for these 14s manifests as complicated emotional relationships due to sexual problems and the intense feelings that these problems arouse in the individual and the people around him. Indeed, sexy, but psychologically disturbed, people abound in the plays of Tennessee Williams (birth name: Thomas Lanier Williams) who was born with a 14 soul urge on March 26, 1911, a birth date that also adds up to 14.
Sexuality often has tragic consequences for those who misuse it in his plays. In Sweet Bird of Youth, the play ends with the gigolo hero being castrated for having infected a Southern politician’s daughter with venereal disease.
Central to the plot of Suddenly Last Summer is the deceased homosexual Sebastian, whose history of sexually victimizing Mexican youths results in him being murdered and cannibalized by them. But there is more to the story. Catherine who has witnessed Sebastian’s violent death was traumatized by the experience. Her aunt wants to have her lobotomized, so that she won’t go around telling everyone the truth that her son was a homosexual. She makes it quite clear to the brain surgeon who might perform the lobotomy that if he doesn’t agree to do it, she will not establish a foundation to subsidize his work. What we see here is that the consequences of Sebastian’s sexual behavior do not affect him alone –- but that there are spin-offs that involve and affect everyone in the play.
This is also true in a Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. At the core of this play is the main character’s impotence, but his sexual dysfunction relates to truths that he cannot face. Not only does this impact upon his wife, but it also affects his relations with himself and his whole family. We see here that the workings of karma in the hands of a writer like Tennessee Williams are indeed complicated.
Perhaps, Tennessee William’s best-known play is A Streetcar Named Desire. To summarize this masterpiece with a few sentences is to do it injustice — (My apologies to the reader and to Tennessee Williams). Blanche’s sexuality and sexual history are tied in with other aspects of her life. Years ago, Blanche catches her young husband having sex with another man. He feels guilty about it and commits suicide and then Blanche feels responsible for his death. The combination of her husband’s infidelity and her guilt about his death lead her to a life of self-destructive sexual behavior. All this occurs before the play begins. She is forced to leave town and ends up being taken in by her sister Stella and her husband Stanley. After a series of confrontations with Stanley, she is raped by him and driven to the brink of insanity. Once again, guilt and a history of sexual irresponsibility lead to a tragic end.
A Streetcar Named Desire was first performed on the Broadway stage in 1947. Philip Kolin, author of several books on Streetcar, once said,“Williams absolutely invented the idea of desire for the 20th century. It was a play that dealt with for the very first time on the American stage, female sexuality and male sexuality.”
Unanimously praised by critics and loved by audiences, A Streetcar Named Desire was subsequently awarded both the Drama Critics’ Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Jessica Tandy received critical acclaim for her creation of Blanche DuBois, for which she received a Tony Award in 1948. A young Marlon Brando, at age 23, attained stage stardom with his astonishingly brutal, emotionally charged performance as Stanley Kowalski. Like Tennessee Williams, both Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy were born with a 14 soul urge. Perhaps this perfect casting was partly due to the fact that Elia Kazan (birth name Elias Kazenjoglou). the director of A Streetcar Named Desire. was also born with a 14 soul urge.
© 2006 Daniel Heydon, All Rights Reserved
Excerpted with permission from The Little Giant Encyclopedia of Numerology by Daniel Heydon, published by Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., (ISBN 080695485X). Available for purchase from www.amazon.com, or your local bookseller.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daniel Heydon is a graduate of Phillips Academy Andover and Brown University. He has been practicing astrology and numerology for over 30 years and has published 100s of articles in various astrological publications. Until recently, he was the writer of the monthly daily guides for all 12 signs for Dell Horoscope, the world's leading astrology magazine. Currently, he lives in Austin, Texas where he is busy writing another book. He can be reached by email at danielhe@danielheydon.com
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