Jeane Dixon(1904-1997)

Jeane Dixon was, arguably, the most famous American astrologer and psychic in the pop culture of the post-World War II period due to her syndicated newspaper column, television talk-show appearances, and a best-selling biography. Dixon proved more of a celebrity and entertainer than a serious soothsayer, more of a Criswell than an Edgar Cayce. Jeane Dixon herself attributed her prophetic abilities to God; while few doubted her sincerity, more than a few skeptics and believers alike doubted the efficacy of her psychic abilities.

Born Lydia Emma Pinckert in Medford, Wisconsin, on January 5, 1904, the future Jeane Dixon was raised in Missouri and California. The devoutly Catholic Miss Pinckert married James Dixon in 1939 and remained married to him until his death. The couple, who ran a successful real estate business, apparently had no children: Mrs. Dixon was notoriously stingy about personal details, even though she was the subject of one of the best-selling biographies of all time in American publishing, at the time.

Richard Nixon, whom she erroneously predicted would win the 1960 Presidential election (and later predicted, again erroneously, would honorably serve his country), called Dixon "the soothsayer" and went so far as to have the government put on alert for a terrorist attack she predicted. The attack never materialized. Despite being proved wrong publicly many, many times, Dixon served as one of the house astrologers who advised First Lady Nancy Reagan Reagan while her husband Ronald Reagan occupied the Oval Office.

Jeane Dixon died of cardiac arrest in Washington, D.C. on January 26, 1997, three weeks after her 93rd birthday.