I wrote a biography about Linda Goodman's life! The rise and fall of Linda Goodman: From Genius to Madness

Linda Goodman is recognized by many as the world’s most famous and greatest astrologer of all time. But she was much more than that. Linda Goodman was born as Mary Alice Kemery on April 9th, 1925 in Morgantown, West Virginia. Although the year of her birth was not revealed to the public until after she died because she wanted to keep her astrological birth chart hidden from the public. She started her career during World War two as a radio host for a popular WCOM radio show in Parkersburg called Love Letters From Linda. Each show she read letters written between soldiers and their loved ones. She then began her career writing for newspapers in the eastern and southeastern United States. She also wrote speeches for black American civil rights leader Whitney Young.
In 1964 she was introduced to Astrology by her second husband, Sam Goodman, who she adopted the name Goodman from. She spent the next three or four years viciously researching and writing astrology. Sam Goodman said in interviews she would spend twenty hours per day researching astrology, never getting out of her night gown, and when she wasn’t doing astrology she was sleeping or eating. She did this for at least a year consecutively. Then in 1968 she released her first book Sun Signs, considered by many to be the most influential astrology book of all time. Despite only four years of practicing astrology, she was already better versed in the subject than anybody on the planet possibly.
She wasn’t just an astrologer. She was a great writer, poet, and some thought she could tell the future. She would later go on to learn numerology and palmology as well. She became a millionaire practically over night with her production of Sun Signs. She shaped and was considered greatly responsible for the growth of the new age movement in the 1960’s, 1970’s and beyond.
After she divorced Sam Goodman, she met a new mysterious lover who she was very infatuated with. Although her lover left her to flee to Mexico in the early 1970’s. When asked about her lovers dissappearance, she cited that “He will be back”. But he never returned. Then, fifteen months later her daughter committed suicide but Goodman denied that it was her daughter despite the autopsy and everything confirming it really was indeed her daughter. She spent millions the rest of her life on the search to find her daughter which probably propelled her madness. She cited that nothing in her daughter’s astrological chart indicated anything about a premature death being evident as her reasoning for not believing her daughter had passed away. She went broke because she failed to finish her second “promised” book for a while, so the publishing company that she owed a book to kept all her royalties to themselves. She was homeless in New York City once and couch surfing for a while.
Finally she finished her second book in 1980 called Love Signs which she received a $500,000 advance for which she spent mostly on the search for her daughter’s supposed disappearance. The private investigator she hired confirmed to her that it couldn’t have been her daughter who died, when all evidence really pointed the other way. This fed into her delusion that her daughter was out there somewhere, ready to return one day.
Linda Goodman was a beautiful woman. She was a typical Aries with her fiery nature and she was certainly a brilliant person and writer. Conveying ideas of astrology in such a gentle and easily readable and relatable manner. After the release of Love Signs which was about 1300 pages long, she moved to Cripple Creek, Colorado where she became a recluse from society. She began to go deeper and deeper into the occult and explored topics such as Karma, reincarnation, love and miracles. As well as other heavy topics that confuse even the greatest occultists. Such as color therapy, lexigramming and immortality. In 1987 she released her final book Star Signs which suggested everybody to give away half of their earnings, that people can be cured of diseases based on the position of the moon and stars or vice-versa, and she talked about her fruitanitarism diet, a diet that consists of gradually preparing yourself over a fifteen year period to eating only fruit. When she reached the point of fruitanitarism she quickly died of diabetes at age 70. She had talked of herself being immortal in Star Signs because of her practices but this certainly was not the case. Although her truest fans believe that she faked her death and she will live forever.
Linda Goodman was a highly motivated genius and had risen to the top at one point only to lose it all, gain it back, and lose it again. Linda Goodman’s legacy will live on forever through her three books Star Signs, Love Signs and Sun Signs. She also published two books of poetry. Rest in peace to the beautiful, brilliant and mad Linda Goodman.

4 Likes

wow, that was a really fun and interesting read ! thanks. Truly she was a unique individual.

2 Likes

well, I wouldn’t call her mad. I wouldn’t call anyone mad, unless that anyone is me.

I have one of her books : Love Signs. It’s very funny.

1 Like

I have it split into two parts

Can’t really get into that one. I read sun signs cover to cover and reading star signs now. It’s so damn long!!

1 Like

I think she was mad because

  1. her obsession of astrology-----working 20 hours per day researching astrology for over a year straight :astonished:
  2. when her lover left her, and her daughter committed suicide I think she was heart broken
  3. she became interested in strange subjects, like all her posts on this board would be under unusual beliefs lol. her book Star Signs is INSANITY on paper but very interesting…

Wow JJ! That was a good read. What an interesting lady.

1 Like