Madalyn Todd Aslan is an American-British writer, astrologer, and palmist. She writes the internationally syndicated column "Bigar's Stars" in over 100 newspapers, and is the author of What's Your Sign?, Madalyn Aslan's Jupiter Signs, and the forthcoming Naked Mother. The New York Times, in its first cover page on a psychic, dubbed her "The Love Guru", and stated: "Ms. Aslan sees subtle detail that others don't...with the gently practiced air of a surgeon.". Madalyn has been featured on The Today Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, PBS, Biography, BBC, CNN and other specials. Her horoscopes have been translated into seven languages, and she has published columns in Cosmopolitan, the New York Post, Daily Mail and others. She is included in Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the World and is the only psychic to have her readings auctioned at Christie's.
Early life
A direct descendant of Mary Todd Lincoln, Madalyn kept her surname of Todd until 1994. She is of Irish, Scottish, Iroquois, and Swedish descent. She was born a 'love child' in Haight Ashbury and did not know of her biological father until she was seven. She grew up in New York City, Hollywood, and London, moving frequently with her actress mother between squats in South London. Madalyn became legally emancipated in England when she was sixteen, and moved back to the United States three years later. She put herself through university and graduate school with scholarships and by psychic readings. In an interview Madalyn gave to the BBC in 2005, she claimed her psychic gift was developed as a means for survival in childhood. Madalyn called her mother "the love, and torment, of my life." She is currently writing a memoir titled Naked Mother.
She acted opposite Rock Hudson in The Martian Chronicles in Malta at the age of fourteen. Offered the part of D. H. Lawrence's teenage crush the following year opposite Ian McKellen in Priest of Love, Madalyn was asked to wear a bikini during a romantic scene with him, which she refused to do and the scene was re-written. She taught at New York University for three years, teaching Palmistry 101 in her English classes upon approval from her department. Channel 9 did a news story on this, as it was considered controversial at the time. Helen Gurley Brown was an early supporter of her astrology work. A decade after Madalyn declined her offer to be Cosmopolitan astrologer, choosing Redbook instead, Helen Gurley Brown wrote to her publisher: “Madalyn is astonishing! A treasure. I'm all for self-improvement, and helping others get on with it — BEAUTIFUL!!”
