Interview by Kathleen Morrison
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When Rhodri, our editor, asked me to ring Russell Grant I was really excited. I left a message that I had rung and couldn't believe it when he called me back for a chat. He was very generous with his time - we talked for ages. He was so interesting, charming and philosophical and by the end of the interview I felt I'd known him for ages.

What was your first big break?
It's got to be the Queen mum in 1978. I was working at the Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition and the Queen Mother came to open it. I was told she would talk to me for about 3 minutes, but she actually stayed for about half an hour. I did her chart and what I didn't know at the time was that it would unleash tremendous media interest - I mean really big. I didn't realise it at the time but I was the first astrologer to be presented publicly to a member of the Royal Family in 400 years.

You seem to have a lot of Welsh connections. How come? I first started off in Wales in the late 1960's at the New Theatre Cardiff as an actor and I appeared in pantomime with Ivor Emmanuel - a real blast from the past. I had a wonderful

time and it was only after I moved to Barry, which was in the 80's, that I suddenly realised this great connection when I wrote the stars column for the Western Mail. My first radio broadcast was for Radio Wales. My first TV programme was with HTV Wales and my first weekly stars column was with the North Wales Weekly News. My mother was having a casual conversation with my Great Aunt Doris and said 'I don't understand it Doris, why is Russell so attracted to Wales?' And Doris said 'Well considering half the family are from there are you surprised?'

Do you have an interest in fine art? I do. I love landscape painting. I like paintings that have wistfulness where I can lose myself in the picture. I love antique maps, which to me very often take place of a picture because antique maps are very beautiful. But my artistic hobby would be calligraphy.

So you're artistic yourself?
I think everyone's artistic. It's just how they express and channel that creativity, it depends what you're calling the art - whether it's creative writing, painting, dancing, music, acting. Somebody like a Taurean can see a garden and plan it very beautifully with the colours of the flowers and that can be artistic as a Rembrandt.

Are there any star signs connected to creativity? Well, there are different ways to look at that astrologically. For instance you would get someone like Capricorn which isn't known as artistic. They are wonderful at forms, so they make great architects. They would know where to save on space to create something practical, which is an art itself. Aquarians would be

artistic in the avant-garde sense, perhaps not everybody's cup of tea, but you can see it in the work of Stravinsky as a composer, or Picasso. A lot of people don't see that as art, but it's each to his or her own isn't it?

What do you put your long lasting success down to? I think that being an Aquarian, having an independent spirit and being able to detach one's self from being too linked to the past - always realising that there are other frontiers to conquer. I think it's that constant ability to re-invent yourself.

As well as becoming the first British astrologer to the royals I became the first astrologer on British television on a daily basis with the BBC and breakfast. Then Fox took me over to America and I became the first astrologer on American television daily. In the late 90's we realised the way that technology was going. We created a technological empire - and my forecasts can be accessed by on-line and mobile users accross the world. We're not put off by anything new - we embrace it.

What aspects of your life do you enjoy the most? There's two really. One is enjoying the theatre, enjoying music and dance, drama and performance. The other one is isolation and privacy and just spending time with Doug and the cats. I love isolation, but it would be no good all the time because then you would lose balance. It would be no good being theatrical all the time because then you would need the other. So one can have two things that are probably polarised - then you create that balance in life, which is ying and yang. I've probably only learnt that in the past few years.


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