Seeing Stars With Jacqueline Bigar
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Jacqueline Bigar
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Wed, Mar 11, 2020
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Contributing Editor
Jacqueline Bigar, the writer of horoscopes for The Philadelphia Inquirer and many other newspapers, died March 1st of this year in her home in Glendale, Arizona. Her son, Geoffrey Livingston, described the death on his Facebook page as stemming from "natural causes.”
I met Jackie in the late 1970s after she began her astrology column in The Daily News. I was writing for the South Street Star at that time and arranged a reading and interview with her in her house near Fifth and Lombard Streets. She suggested I bring a cassette tape so I could record the reading. The reading was conducted on the floor of her living room where we both sat squat style as if in a teepee. She read from a chart she had prepared. These were the calculations she made regarding my birth chart given to her one week in advance.
Jackie asked me if I’d like a drink. Since she was having a Scotch, I followed suit.
She gave a less than hopeful reading on a love interest of mine — the reason for my visit. When the reading was over, I started my interview. It was at that point that I had the feeling that we would become friends. I was startled, however, when she insisted that she read the interview before publication. This is something that no journalist should ever do; but I made an exception in her case because I liked her. As it happened, she liked the piece very much. Two weeks later I was hanging out in her house once again only this time she ordered a take-out pizza, some salad, and opened a bottle of wine.
Jackie amazed me with her advanced views on sexual orientation, gender, and what it meant to be married. She seemed to know everyone at The Daily News, thanks to her talent as an astrologer and the valuable connections provided her by her husband, Tom Livingston.
Jackie moved quite a bit when she lived in Philadelphia. From Lombard Street, she moved to another house, and then to another house after that. I could barely keep up with all the moves. For a time, she lived on Front Street in a beautiful home that reminded me of a house in New Orleans. When I showed up for a reading there, she left the door of the house open for me. Walking inside, I noticed a large open bottle of white wine on the kitchen counter and several snacks. Jackie was with another client in another room. I was told beforehand to make myself at home.
She told me a lot of things about various Philadelphia personalities, many of whom were in broadcast news. She talked about growing up with Action News’ Jim Gardner. When it came to her professional life, she could be quite competitive. One day during a visit to her place I noticed that she had the Maury Povich "People Are Talking” show on TV. Maury’s guest was Philadelphia psychic Valerie Morrison. Morrison, dressed in a flowing pink chiffon gown, was filmed walking into the studio audience carrying a candelabra. Povich, who had introduced Morrison as a psychic/astrologer, listened as Morrison gave predictions for the various Sun Signs. Jackie flew into a rage and called the TV station, saying that she was the astrologer while Morrison had always called herself a psychic.
Semantics, perhaps, but it was a clumsy moment for me because I knew and liked both women very much.
At one point I applied for a job at The Daily News as an ad copywriter. Jackie helped me get the job interview where I was expected to bring in an ad that I had designed and written, so I brought a pen and ink advertisement I wrote for Jackie’s astrology column. To be honest, I look back on this with some embarrassment. The advertising copy was dense and esoteric and my 'product' choice, Jackie, gave the whole thing a sycophantic feel. The Ad Dept head, I think, was being kind when he nodded his head and said as little as possible.
Jackie was always discovering some new guru to follow and her coffee table was always filled with the new guru’s books. The Indian mystic Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (1931–1990), also known as Osho, was a major guru for her. He was a guru who fit Jackie’s bohemian lifestyle.
At one point she invited me to attend a Shree Rajneesh conference but on the appointed day Jackie was not at home. Jackie called me later that night and told me that she had been in an automobile accident.
She was an extremely generous woman. Her favorite restaurant was Montserrat at Sixth and South Street, an American Bistro. She often invited me to tag along with her (and she usually paid the bill). She never seemed to mind that I could rarely pay. Over time I introduced her to a number of my friends.
At one of her parties, she introduced me to Miguel Rivera, one of several alleged killers of an 18-year-old man in one of the pools of the Museum of Art whose girlfriend was raped in June of 1973. Riveria, who was awarded a new trial in 1987 after spending nine years in jail, was acquitted of the murder. Rivera needed a place to stay and because Jackie was friends with his attorney, he was Jackie’s guest for a couple of weeks. Jackie’s pizza and wine party for Rivera included lots of wild dancing.
After the party, she said she didn’t mind if I wrote about it in my Different Strokes column in the Welcomat.
Jackie’s cats were always beautiful and luxurious looking creatures. She always had a pet.
When she told me something I didn’t like in a reading — "Jackie, how could yousay that you make it sound like one day I'll retire to a monastery!” — she said inno uncertain terms, "Well, what’s wrong with that?” Her mind was as broad as her tastes.
When her astrology column went over to The Inquirer I didn’t see much of her for a while.
That other Philadelphia psychic, Valerie Morrison, had contacted me about writing her biography, so I felt I couldn’t be friends with both women at the same time.
Jackie was now a syndicated columnist and traveling in different social circles. We lost touch, and my book "deal” with Morrison failed to materialize.
Jackie introduced me to a Philadelphia psychic she said she consulted for private readings. Her name was Arlene Ostapowic. Arlene and Jackie were also roommates for a time. Ostapowic, who died last year, told me that she was one of Jackie’s astrology teachers.
Jackie’s syndicated success was nothing less than startling. I did touch base with her a year or two before she left Philadelphia. The reading was pleasant but the excitement of the past had vanished.
Not long after the reading, Jackie would move to Arizona.
