Monday, March 31, 2008

Hathor Locklear, Meet Hathor Graham


The name Heather is said to come from the Middle English hather, which decribes a flower once used in the brewing of beer. But knowing as we do that Druids were merely a branch of the Egyptian Solar priesthoods, it makes sense to assume that this flower was originally named in honor of Hathor, to whom beer was sacred.


So we have another name to look at during Hathor Week, though seemingly less charged with significance than Ka-Athyr-Ein.

     

 Heather Locklear's first notable role was on the unintentionally hilarious cop show, TJ Hooker, forming the third part of a trinity with Adrian Zmed and Bill Shatner. 

The late Bill Cooper noted that Shatner's signature role as James T. Kirk had symbolic import. Kirk's initials were JTK, the reverse of the initials for Knights of the Temple of Jerusalem. Kirk's predecessor was Christopher Pike, whom Cooper claimed was named in honor of Albert Pike, the Masonic grand poobah of poobahs. Cooper didn't note that the Enterprise's registry was NCC-1701, or that James Tiberius Kirk could be seen as a cipher for "Supplanter of The Roman Church," the all-consuming goal of the Knights since 1307.

   

 Speaking of unintentionally hilarious, this scene were Heather displays her somewhat boyish young figure and awkwardly dances while posing as a stripper certainly fits the bill. But seeing that Hathor is the goddess of music and sex, this display seems almost obligatory.

   

 Following a stint on Melrose Place (Melrose means "barren heath") Heather was hired on ABC's Spin City, playing opposite noted time-traveler Marty McFly as "Caitlin Moore." Caitlin is yet another variation on Ka-Athyr-Ein.

   

 Another blonde Hathor emerged in Holy-Wood in the 90's, Heather Graham. She first caught my notice as Rollergirl in Boogie Nights, which starred Mark Wahlberg (I tend to pay extra attention to symbolism in Wahlberg movies since his family lives a block from the house I grew up in). 

She then appeared in Steve Martin's Scientology parody Bowfinger with alleged androgyny enthusiast Eddie Murphy. It's generally believed her character is a satire of Anne Heche, who claimed to have hosted an extraterrestrial persona named Celestia and gives voice to Lois Lane in the Superman: Doomsday animated film, a blatant dying/ressurrecting Solar parable. 

But Graham hit the semiotic bullseye with From Hell, the Masonic conspiracy film based on the Alan Moore Jack the Ripper graphic novel. Though seriously trimmed down and altered from the original source material, we do see a depiction of Moore's unlikely theory that Jack the Ripper was the decrepit, elderly surgeon William Gull (a 72 year-old stroke victim at the time of Mary Ann Nichols very violent death). 

   

Sadly, Hathor Graham's career zoomed towards the b-list in fairly short order. One straight to video extravaganza she starred in was Blessed, a blatant Rosemary's Baby ripoff filmed in Romania, co-starring James Purefoy (Rome), Andy Serkis (aka Gollum) and David Hemmings (Blow Up).

Rosemary's Baby seems to have inspired a few knockoffs in the past few years. None of them star John Cusack, who was born the same day as the original baby in question.