Celebrity chef, Anthony Bourdain, took his own life on the evening of June 7th, or in the early hours of June 8th, 2018. His body was found in his hotel room in Kaysersberg France, while on location for the shooting of an episode of his popular television series Parts Unknown. Bourdain was a writer extraordinaire who artfully introduced his audience to exotic cultures through the lens of gastronomy.

Astrologers use diverse methods to analyze the components of a natal horoscope and then note the transits and progressions that set their findings into motion. The examination of Anthony Bourdain’s chart focuses on a small segment of the wheel to draw attention to what is called the Sharp Destiny. It is identified in his case by the square between Jupiter and Saturn. The technique is part of a collection of advanced procedures that were developed in the mid-20th century by astrologer par excellence, Marc Edmund Jones.  The Sharp Destiny explains Bourdain’s early struggles in life but also contributes to his growth and later successes. Failures and achievements are both born of this challenging aspect, and a native is clearly at an advantage when recognizing the blessing of its presence in the chart and works to actualize its elevated purpose.

In his  Essentials of Astrological Analysis, Jones gives startling insight into the psyche of anyone with this aspect, and no exception is found in the life of the charismatic chef and storyteller, who would have benefited greatly from the following description.

JUPITER AND SATURN IN A  SQUARE ASPECT, indicate an ordering of life’s fundamental motives, through which the native usually suffers very immediate consequences of the least neglect or abuse of his own potentials. He finds he must fight continually for the ideals in which he has come to take the most consistent interest, and also learns that his conscious well-being is wholly dependent on the moral struggles in which he becomes involved almost inevitably at every stage of his experience. If he does not relish the days in which he seems torn to pieces in self-uncertainty, he must discover ways to tear himself apart deliberately, and in equally painful fashion, on the behalf either of some cause of real significance or some conception that he can dramatize through his own being. Personal existence under this configuration can become either great opportunity, or else a gradual disintegration of the soul in the very core of itself. (1)

The lifelong tension between the energies of Jupiter and Saturn is the celestial factor that brought Bourdain’s attention to the anxiety and feelings of guilt he struggled with when weighing moral concerns of right and wrong.  In his own words,  . . . “oh God, whatever I did yesterday is really shameful and embarrassing, and that’s the story of a lot of my life . . . I’m constitutionally unable to wake up in the morning and to know that the show we did was really cynical, stupid and I don’t  care if people like it.”(2)  Bourdain was prone to confront his actions in hindsight, and those feelings of guilt are the mark of the Sharp Destiny’s ultra self-reflection. He was unaware that periodic crises were provoked by the square of Jupiter and Saturn and lacked an understanding of the forces at play. This left him at a disadvantage when dealing with his sensitivities and insecurities, and so at an early age, he sought solace through drugs and alcohol.

Addiction can be compulsive escapism that becomes a hindrance to true self-discovery, and for the person with a Sharp Destiny, the urgency to find answers is very real. In the face of formidable challenges, Bourdain admitted to taking a good hard look in the mirror and saw someone deep inside who was worth saving. He candidly opened up in an on-screen therapy session about his past substance abuse by stating,  “Something was missing in me. Whether it was a self-image situation, whether  it was a character flaw … some dark genie inside me, that I very much hesitate to call a disease, led me to dope.”(3)

The Sharp Destiny acts as a reality check that makes the native uncomfortably aware of personal shortcomings. Bourdain often showed traits of humility and compassion but also was a self-confessed narcissist, and his self-defeating “bad-boy” demeanor blocked the utilization of transformative principles he was exposed to through Buddhism. One can view the Sharp Destiny as a celestial non-doctrine incentive encouraging personal growth, however, in spite of periodic revelations the native was left to battle his “demons” on an ongoing basis.

THE PLANETARY DEPARTMENTS

Jones’ innovative techniques were based on early astrological practices, and he expounds on them in his writings to give a deeper and more comprehensive scope to chart interpretation. In his chapter on Self-Ordering in the Essentials, he begins by pairing the planets into four distinct departments of Self-Determination.(4) Each departmental pair is then assessed for a possible major aspect between their positive and negative significators. To complete the analysis, with what Jones calls the  Mode of Self-Integration, he pits two pairs in major aspect against two that are not, to define how a native psychologically approaches external circumstances and opportunities. The four planetary departments of Self-Determination are,

1) The Sun and Moon of Vitality, as the organic will-to-be of the Greater Light, coupled with the  Lesser Light’s emotional response to its surroundings.

2) Jupiter and Saturn, as they define the soul’s personal Motivation through Jupiter’s enthusiastic outreach, paired with Saturn’s complimentary sober self-restraint.

3) Mars and Venus are paired to establish Efficiency in experience, through the initiative of Mars in concert with Venus’s gratifying completion.

4) And Uranus and Neptune, the planets of Significance, as they work together to encourage the elevation and expansion of consciousness.

Mercury and Pluto are supernumerary and are not active in this departmental categorization.

THE SHARP AND LOOSE DESTINY

Each planetary department is vital for a well-rounded involvement in the business of everyday living. However, it is the role of Jupiter and Saturn, as the department of Motivation, to introduce to the native, the responsibility to develop self-awareness and personal accountability. Their process unfolds the necessary foundation for higher consciousness, represented by Uranus and Neptune, which are the planetary pair of Significance. The prominence, or lesser influence, of the department of Motivation in the chart, is determined by the major aspects between them, signifying whether life is lived through a Sharp or Loose Destiny.

An aspect allowance between Jupiter and Saturn has an orb of 10 degrees. A Sharp Destiny is identified when the pair of Motivation is in conjunction, square, or opposition, with each aspect characterized by its own definition. These formidable aspects produce continuous self-monitoring, which should lead to a dedication to high moral standards.(5) A Loose Destiny is found in the chart with Jupiter and Saturn in sextile, trine, or not in major aspect, allowing the native to be more relaxed in the judgment of their own or others’ acts and attitudes, and with relative freedom from the pressures of environmental influence.(6)

The contribution of the Sharp and Loose Destiny, as they relate to all other chart configurations, helps form the basic differences in personal life potentials. Jones elaborates, “The fundamental distinction is between the life with its course rather well-determined at birth, or before, and the one where there is little preset in its development.”(7)

BOURDAIN’S SHARP DESTINY

Using the Placidus house system, the chart shows natal Saturn in the 4th house of the soul’s deeper impulses as it applies in square to Jupiter near the cusp of the 2nd house of personal and financial resources. The aspect is in a mere 45 minutes of separation. Natal Pluto conjuncts Jupiter with an orb of 1 degree 13 minutes, and at the same time applies in square to natal Saturn with an orb of only 28 minutes. Pluto’s intimate participation in the square, buttresses the effects of the Sharp Destiny and greatly amplifies its over-all power in the chart. Its presence in close contact with Jupiter increased Bourdain’s already good fortune and was the indicator of his at times brutal honesty, considering one of Pluto’s keywords is Probity. This formation of planetary influences reveals a portion of the native’s promise in natal terms, but it is the transits and progressions to this unique configuration, that signal the timing of events that propel its potentials toward self-actualization. Natal Venus, Sun and Neptune flank the complex square with sextiles that ease an otherwise solely tense situation.

PROGRESSIONS to the Jupiter-Saturn Square

The activation of the Sharp Destiny in Bourdain’s chart focuses primarily on Saturn and Pluto as they transition from natal characteristics to the roles they play as Dynamic catalysts. Natal planets, within their aspect networks, manifest on a subtle level throughout life, but the promptings of transits and progressions put the native on alert to deeper possibilities latent within. Saturn and Pluto awakened the full force of the Sharp Destiny with three important progressed aspects. In chronological order, they are; a progressed Saturn station direct, the progressed Pluto conjunct natal Jupiter, and progressed Saturn square natal Pluto.

The Progressed Saturn Station Direct  

Progressed stations mark pivotal life changes even when they are not in close aspect with natal planets, which are a prerequisite for transit stations. Whether turning retrograde or direct, a  progressed station signals a halt in time and space, to change and rearrange things in life’s ever-pressing journey. According to Jones, “The phenomenon in the secondary directions, always identifies a subtle or psychological shift in the fundamental course in life, such as requires a critical regrasp of experience.”(8)

Neptune, Venus, Saturn, and Mars, all stationed in Bourdain’s progressions during his lifetime, stationing at ages 14, 19, 36 and 47, respectively. In this chart interpretation, the focus is on the station of Saturn, because it takes part in the formation of the Sharp Destiny.

Saturn was retrograde at Bourdain’s birth and was separating from its square with Jupiter for 36 years when at that time it stationed to go direct. After turning direct, it is calculated to complete its square with Jupiter at the age of 82, when it arrives at 22 Scorpio 57. Since this is beyond the span of the native’s lifetime, the climactic potentials of this chart’s primary feature will not be a part of this delineation.

On September 3, 1991, Saturn stationed to go direct at 26 Scorpio 10, approximately 36 days after birth, and corresponds to age 36, the time of the native’s dramatic career advancement. The progressed station is shown in an ephemeris on July 31, 1956. Stationary planets are effective for a period of time, before and after the exact pause in their motion. The slowly developing station of Saturn tracked Bourdain’s evolution from dishwasher and line cook to executive chef. He matured into his new position by realizing his latent integrity, enabling him to live up to more demanding responsibilities. Jessica Lindsay of Metro News stated, “By 1992, Bourdain was executive chef at Manhattan’s Brasserie Les Halles, where he remained for a number of years.”(9) This advancement corresponds with a station going direct, marking an outward step in life, rather than an inward withdrawal, synchronous with how a station retrograde would manifest. It was rewarding for one who had long paid his dues, to be elevated as overseer of the then prominent New York brasserie. Jones further explains a progressed station,  “. . . it often proves to be an adjustment over an appreciable span of time, whether marked by some single sharp event of easy identification, or by a complex syndrome of changes of less obvious interrelation.”  The turning point in the early 1990s came from both a single event and a tireless work-ethic over an appreciable span of time. Menial labor, at last, gave way to an illustrious and prosperous career.

The Progressed Pluto Conjunct Natal Jupiter

Pluto’s ultra-slow movement in its orbit of the Sun can have only limited Dynamic contacts with natal planets during the span of a lifetime. However, in Bourdain’s chart, Pluto is already in close conjunction with Jupiter and has only a short distance to progress to complete its aspect. The conjunction was exact on March 11, 2000, occurring at age 44, when the Greater Benefic, prodded by powerful Pluto, launched him from executive chef to become one of the world’s most influential and celebrated food and travel television hosts.

The progression synchronizes with Bourdain’s groundbreaking article, Don’t Eat Before Reading This, published in the April 1999 issue of The New Yorker Magazine. The article opened the door that year for his tell-all book and best-seller,  Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly.(10)  These writings marked the author’s rise from relative obscurity to fame and fortune. About his past difficulties and new-found fortune, Bourdain told Wealth Simple,  “I didn’t put anything aside, ever. Money came in, money went out. I was always a paycheck behind, at least. I usually owed my chef my paycheck: again, cocaine. Until I was 44, I never even had a savings account.”(11) And in  Kitchen Confidential,  he wrote,  “Only one in four has a chance at making it. And right there, I knew that if one of us was getting off dope, and staying off dope, it was going to be me. I was the guy.”  These statements illustrate Jones’s positive potentials of a Sharp Destiny. For at least 17 years hence, the native tore himself away from financial ineptitude and obsessive drug abuse, for a cause he could dramatize through his creative role as the philosophical wandering gourmet.

The Progressed Saturn Square Natal Pluto

Exact on April 2, 2016, at the age of 60, Bourdain’s progressed Saturn, now in direct motion, completed its square to natal Pluto. Squares in progressions are considered fulcrum because they play the crucial role of giving the native the emotional leverage for change, which Jones described  as “a critical self-mobilization required by the native under the pressure of objective events.”(12)  The characteristics of this particular square correspond to Bourdain’s official split in September 2016, after years of marriage, from Ottavia Busia.

The aspect also marked the start of a new and captivating love affair. In an article in Eonline.com about the parting of ways with Busia, an insider stated, “There was no one else involved.”(13)  It is not certain if that is factual given that shortly after the separation, news reports proclaimed his budding romance with Italian actress Asia Argento, who appeared in the December episode of  Parts Unknown filmed in Rome. Obviously, the couple must have had contact before the episode aired, and although there is no date published for their first meeting, it was undoubtedly before their romance became public, and perhaps closer to the exact date of the life-altering square.

A COMPARISON OF POTENTIALS  – Venus to Pluto Cross Conjunction

In a comparison of charts between Bourdain and Argento, the conjunction and opposition aspects are the important planetary connections to look for when seeking longevity in a relationship. Synastry between the lovers reveals two planetary conjunctions, within, or in the proximity of the allowable 1-degree orb. The first of the two conjunctions to note is Argento’s Venus at 25 Leo 31, as it applies in a 1 degree 8-minute conjunction with Bourdain’s Pluto at 26 Leo 39. Due to Pluto’s proximity to Jupiter, their irresistible mutual attraction drew her sensibilities into the confines and influence of his Sharp Destiny. And here is the astrological validation for the Plutonian obsession displayed by the storyteller toward the actress. His fixation on her alarmed his friends who likened him to a love-struck teenager, as documented in their remarks made to People.com.(14) On the positive side, the conjunction stirred Argento to great affection for him, and as a film director, she contributed her artistic Venusian touch to several episodes of Parts Unknown. Bourdain reciprocated with the loyal support of her involvement in the #MeToo sexual abuse movement.

Saturn to Uranus Cross Conjunction

An equally important conjunction is Saturn at 0 Leo 17 in Argento’s chart, applying to Bourdain’s Uranus at 0 Leo 49. This is well within the accepted 1-degree orb allowance. Positioned in the exact same degree, their planets share the Sabian Symbol,  A case of apoplexy.  Both cross pairs between the couple show Argento holding the reins of the relationship because the planets in her chart apply in conjunction with his planets which are separating from their mutual placement.

Interestingly, this contact draws Argento’s Sharp Destiny into the picture with Bourdain’s Uranus in this instance providing stimulus to her own fated square. When both individuals contribute a Sharp Destiny to the relationship, it is cause for some concern. In this case, the tension is exacerbated because their Sharp Destinies are tied through the synastry of the cross pair of her Saturn to his Uranus. Jones explains, “The partnership develops its best potentials for them, as they are able to survive strains and crises that often prove very tragic.”(15) Examples given by Jones are the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, and the accidental death of Queen Astrid, while married to King Leopold of Belgium.

Without consideration of its tie to Argento’s Sharp Destiny, their Saturn-Uranus pairing, of itself, hints of contrasting proclivities that the natives would need to endure. For her, Saturn leans toward sobering resistance because of their age difference, professional careers, and family obligations, while his Uranus, on the contrary, tends to minimize restraints, as it vies for unconventionality. Apparently, the couple resolved conflicting demands by the agreement to exercise the necessary freedom to pursue their separate careers and lifestyles. This seemingly liberated arrangement and the influence of the duel and linked Sharp Destinies set the stage for the unfortunate tragic end of their relationship.

There is the possibility of a crosstie from Bourdain’s Moon to Argento’s Saturn, however, because the time of birth noted in the Rodden Rating is not taken from a document, but from memory, and considering the tight orb-allowance of one degree, a discussion of this possible opposition will not be explored in this analysis.

TRANSITS TO CROSSTIES 

Eclipses are transits and are supplemental to the all-important progressions. Together they simultaneously create a complex platform of multi-dimensional experience. There were several solar and lunar eclipses throughout 2017 and 2018 that were interacting with Bourdain’s natal planets. The most impactful was the total solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, that fell within a few degrees of his Pluto. Besides being a stimulus for his own independent involvement, the eclipse energized the couple’s Venus-Pluto crosstie.

An eclipse that stimulates a shared zodiacal point draws a powerful focus on relationship potentials. It intensifies the interaction characterized by the planet’s meanings, the function of the signs they occupy, and the circumstances of the houses involved. It is likely that the total eclipse lifted the couple to emotional sublime heights, enhanced by demonstrative Leo and its association with the glamour of the entertainment world. They appeared together on the Red Carpet at the Emmy Awards on September 17, 2017, just shy of one month after the total eclipse. Bourdain did not win an Emmy award that year, but the eclipse does correspond to his nomination in five categories.

From the beginning of their relationship in 2016, until its abrupt end in 2018, and not before or after, eclipses were perpetually energizing their ardent crosstie.  With an orb allowance of 5 degrees, there were 4 major eclipse contacts.

The penumbral lunar eclipse on August 18, 2016, opposite the crosstie at 25 Aquarius 52;

The penumbral lunar eclipse on February 10, 2017, conjunct their crosstie at 22 Leo 28;

And more powerfully, the previously noted total solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, with its conjunction to the cross tie at 28 Leo 53;

And finally, the partial solar eclipse on February 15, 2018, opposing their crosstie at  27 Aquarius 08.

THE DYNAMICS OF 2018

On May 31, 2018, one week before the suicide, Uranus was transiting Bourdain’s Midheaven at 0 Taurus 49, and was in exact square to its natal position in the 12th house, bringing his hidden inner turmoil into public view. Uranus in transit was also just leaving its conjunction with the progressed Moon as it ingressed into the 10th house at 0 Taurus 4. The progressed Moon also was in square aspect to natal Uranus.

The lineup of challenging progressed Moon aspects appears on the Aspect List from March until June 2018. The progressed Moon alternated between squares to its own natal position, and to natal Uranus for four long months. Moon progressions have a two-month duration, with recognizable events on the days the progressed Moon enters, is exact, and when it leaves its aspect.

Bourdain’s suicide synchronized with the very day on which the progressed Moon was leaving its square to natal Uranus. One month later, Moon progressions turned toward emotionally easier sextiles and trines into early 2020. Had Bourdain been aware of this, perhaps he would have been encouraged to soldier-on. The chart and the Aspect List show the network of aspects leading to June 8, 2018, when Bourdain’s body was found.

Argento was also drawn into this astrological complex with both transiting Uranus and Bourdain’s progressed Moon making a tight opposition to her natal Uranus at 0 Scorpio 37. In addition, her Saturn, linked to Bourdain’s natal Uranus, was also stressed by the square from transiting Uranus, as well as receiving the square from Bourdain’s progressed Moon. While these aspects triggered the couple’s Saturn-Uranus cross pair, the February solar eclipse, still in effect in June, did the same with their Venus-Pluto tie. The eclipse fell in the native’s 7th house of relationships and confrontational challenges, bringing to focus the effects Argento’s infidelity might have on Bourdain’s state of mind. The eclipse was particularly strong, as it was within one minute of an exact square with his natal Saturn – one of the all-important planets defining the Sharp Destiny. All transits and progressions to Bourdain’s Pluto and Uranus affected Argento’s through crosstie, simultaneously activating their Sharp Destinies at the time of his death. 

The most visible event related to their mutual aspects near the time of the suicide is the publication of the compromising photographs of Argento with French-reporter Hugo Clement, taken by photographer Agostino Fabio, as they strolled affectionately down the streets of Rome. Paparazzi photographer, Rino Barillari, also took photos of them dancing after dinner at a well-known restaurant-bar. When Argento realized they had been photographed, she asked him to delete the images from his camera. She was obviously aware that if the images were in print or online, they could be seen by Bourdain, who might find them disturbing, in spite of her claim that they had an open relationship. Barillari did not delete them and they were promptly published, going viral on June 5, 2018, just days before Bourdain took his own life. After hearing of Bourdain’s death, Barillari expressed regrets for having sold them for publication and then pulled them from the internet. He told Italian newspaper  La Verità, “A picture is not worth a life. If that shot triggered suicide, this would make me suffer.”(16)

In an interview with Daily Mail, Argento said, “I understand that people wanted to blame me because he was so deeply loved, and he entered the hearts of so many people. Do people need to think he killed himself for something like this? He had cheated on me too. It wasn’t a problem for us.”(17)

Bourdain however, was prone to letting even minor things get under his skin. In his Argentinian Parts Unknown episode of 2016, he revealed,  “I will find myself in an airport, and I’ll order an airport hamburger. It’s an insignificant thing, it’s a small thing, it’s a hamburger, but it’s not a good one. Suddenly, I look at the hamburger and I find myself in a spiral of depression that can last for days.”  In that episode, he also expressed having trouble communicating with people he cared about. And unfortunately, he did not confide in chef and close friend Eric Ripert, who was with him on location in Kaysersberg, nor did he reach out to his lover before his suicide, though according to rumors he had been showing signs of distress for some time. 

A more penetrating understanding of the Saturn-Uranus dynamic between Bourdain and Argento is revealed in the following Sabian Symbol.

LEO 1  A case of apoplexy.  From his Sabian Symbols in Astrology.

This is a symbol of an overwhelming potentiality, and of an ever-pressing necessity for genuine self-establishment and personal stability.  Implicit in the reversed symbolism is man’s complete lack of inhibition in his everyday make-up, together with his ability to mobilize all his powers, and even risk his own existence rather than accept any thwarting of his desires.  Here is emphasis on the unbroken continuity between being and doing, or between identity and its continual manifestation of itself. The keyword is IRRESISTABILITY. When positive, the degree is creativity in the day-by-day expression of the self’s real possibilities, and when negative, thoroughgoing self-indulgence and imposition on others.

The pressure of squares by transits and progressions to this particular degree on the day of his passing undoubtedly figures in with Bourdain’s act of self-inflicted violence. The original symbol is described as,  A fat, and normally good-natured little man of affairs, is red to bursting with a determination to have his own way.  Although this is far from a literal description of either of the natives, the symbol does suggest that there was for both, an irresistible drive to achieve what they wanted at all costs, even to the extent that they would literally live out the negative description of the symbol, and forfeit life itself, as Bourdain did, for yet an undisclosed reason. But one can safely assume that there were thwarted desires to contend with, as the symbol implies.

Sadly, no one can know for certain what the cause of suicide might be when there is little forewarning, and no note left behind. However, the series of unyielding and stressful aspects to the couple’s crossties, give the impression that the indiscreet photographs were among the concerns on the native’s mind in the days before his death. While one cannot entirely dismiss Argento’s influence on Bourdain’s emotional state in June 2018, it is not the objective of astrology to find the cause or to place blame, but to note synchronicity between aspects and experience, with the limited knowledge available. In the words of Marc Edmund Jones,  “Astrology is the science of probability.” Although aspects may present a tempting scenario, the ultimate truth lies in the heart of he who has passed. Sadly, Bourdain gave way to the negative propensities described by the Sharp Destiny, as a result of the inability to rise to the challenge of its better potentials.

BOURDAIN’S SATURN SABIAN SYMBOL

Because of Saturn’s fundamental role in the Sharp Destiny, and its importance as a progressed station in midlife, and its fulcrum square to Pluto, it warrants a mention of the most illuminating Sabian Symbol in the chart. Rounded to 28 Scorpio, natal Saturn is in the degree of The king of the fairies approaching his domain.  In its original draft, published in mimeographed form in 1925, the symbol is more explanatory; A pageant of fairyland is made visible to mortal eyes; the king of the little people is welcomed to his domain.

There is a  “handful of elfin concepts,”  as described by Marc Edmund Jones, among the 360 images that collectively are the Sabian Symbols. Included are, A bunny metamorphosed into a fairy, Brownies dancing in the setting sun, Two fairies on a moonlit night, A man dreaming of fairies, and King of the fairies approaching his domain.  Of these five, King of the fairies holds a unique place in the series, by describing the sovereign of the community of elfin characters also known as the “little people.”

In his Essentials, Jones elaborates on these images when delineating the Sun degree of Prince Charles of England, explaining that the degrees,  “. . . carry an implication of otherworldliness, or of some psychological exemption from the common limitations of mediocrity, such as is the plague of all too many members of the human family.”  He continues to elucidate,  “that one cannot ever live for himself, but instead, must exist as a special incarnation of some social ideal. He must be the imaginative reality, in which others may have their particular self-fulfillment, and he  essentially  becomes a myth figure.”(18) This is truly how so many in Bourdain’s audience viewed him, as they lived vicariously through his travels and compelling commentary.

SCORPIO 28,  The king of the fairies approaching his domain

This is a symbol of the eternal promise underlying all inner self-realization, since any actual fullness of life is altogether independent of the passing state of affairs in a world of time and space. Implicit in the symbolism is the futility of man’s common reliance on people and things through some mere accident of contact. Outer reality takes the form with which he endows it as he exercises his sovereignty over its various potentials in the creative realms of his own imagination. The keyword is ALLEGIANCE. When positive, the degree is a special competence of inward vision, and a consequent outward perspective of high effectiveness, and when negative, capricious self-indulgence.

This description expounds on Bourdain’s imaginative writings of his worldwide travels and his intimate relationship with food. All limitations aside, Bourdain emanated an enchanting persona with which these special degrees endow an individual. His fans and followers honored him with the ultimate homage that was due a king, or at the very least, a great storyteller on the world stage. Everyone, everywhere, welcomed him into their realm and into their homes, and ultimately, into their hearts. His audience felt blessed to journey with him, whether on-screen or in some far-off parts unknown.