Missing Miss Cleo

Glennmaicha

Oh, Miss Cleo. I fondly remember the commercials in which she acted out her part with the fake accent and references to zodiac signs. I was never affected by the company's scams, and she rather inspired me to start looking into tarot, leading to my purchase of a RWS deck in 8th grade. (I proceeded to give very poor - but free - readings to classmates as a science fair project that year, with classmates calling me "Mr. Cleo". I had close to no idea what the cards meant at that point.)

I feel sad that she died at a young age with the scams and scandals attached to her. It might be wishful thinking, but I feel like she was misrepresented to a degree by the company that acquired the rights to her character and title.

In any case, I find it interesting that I was only recently reading articles about Miss Cleo and viewing her "Tarot Power Cards" on eBay. I resisted the purchase then, but decided to buy a set of them today. They're probably not the most orthodox deck, but they'll be nice as memorabilia.
 

Philistine

Glennmaicha said:
her "Tarot Power Cards" on eBay. I resisted the purchase then, but decided to buy a set of them today. They're probably not the most orthodox deck, but they'll be nice as memorabilia.
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A friend bought this deck for me as a Christmas gag gift last year. I have yet to read with them, but I *almost* got them out last night. Maybe tonight. . . .
 

Darkmage

Shade said:
I had not seen those before and that second clip is very moving. It's so frustrating that she became the "bad guy" when she was just the face of the operation.
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Shade said:
I thought this was a rather insightful article from Vice a few years back: http://www.vice.com/read/we-spoke-t...tois-and-getting-ripped-off-by-her-old-bosses
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Yeah the company bosses pretty much threw her under the bus. It wasn't right.

Problem is, the scam artists give the legit readers a bad name. But she brought a lot of people into Tarot and astrology that maybe wouldn't have been there had they not been stoned out of their gourds at 1 am. *shrug*
 

Debra

We were abroad during that whole period. When I returned to the US, tarot was everywhere. I think she's the reason.

She was known by many names, according to her Wikipedia entry. I saw someone had inserted the "didn't see it coming" line about her death and by the time I got to the page editor, someone else had already removed it.
 

Ace

danieljuk said:
She never really made it to Europe and so I never saw her infomercials here but knew of her as a legend.

Here is a clip with her talking about working the phone lines from the documentary "Hotline"
RIP Miss Cleo
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Shade said:
I thought this was a rather insightful article from Vice a few years back: http://www.vice.com/read/we-spoke-t...tois-and-getting-ripped-off-by-her-old-bosses
Click to expand...

Thank you both for the info. I was amused by Miss Cleo. I had done 900 before this and I even appeared on a program on CNN with Jackie Stallone, Sylvester's Mom. She was in Hollywood and I was in Chicago but still...Anyway, she also was figureheading a 900 line. So I knew some of what REALLY happened. I never knew Miss Cleo had actually WORKED a line (as she talks about in the first clip.)

Since I also wear a head scarf as part of my "gypsy" costume, people especially kids would ask me if I was Miss Cleo.

Most of us "real" readers just laughed at her, but I never put her down. If her line was a scam (and in those days, most 900 lines were) that was not her fault. She was just an actress. I am sorry she had died so young.


barb
 

Ace

Thanks, Lee! This is really interesting! They gave them a SCRIP they could use for readings? How desperate is that?

Barb
 

gregory

I have had her deck for years. I could never see why people dissed her ALL the time. She DID do a lot to bring Tarot into the "mainstream", and there - are much worse people around, to put it mildly.

And who's to say she didn't predict her own death ? I have predicted mine. I know it's going to happen - the cards told me.

I'll miss her. The world needs a bit of colour.
 

Achlys

RIP Miss Cleo

I'm honestly somewhat surprised that people are instantly calling her a fraud in this thread, though.
Was there any proof that her readings were invalid?
I remember her being a kitschy character, but how does that equate to fraud?
I know they misrepresented the cost of the readings, but I don't remember hearing anything about misrepresenting the content of the readings.

People who work for garbage hotlines aren't frauds themselves. I worked briefly with a hotline and gave honest readings, regardless of what my coworkers were doing.

And the people who are making jokes about her predicting her own death...For all we know, she did. Or maybe she just didn't want to. Not everyone wants to know exactly when their death is going to happen.
 
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