Ayn Rand and the World She Made

by Anne C. Heller

  “She didn’t want anyone to know”: Taped interview with MS, conducted by BB, January 20, 1983. Millicent Patton, a friend of the O’Connors’ in the 1930s, independently recalled in 1982, “I never heard Mimi’s last name” (taped interview, conducted by BB, December 5, 1982).

  “They all changed their names”: Author interview with Susan Belton, October 24, 2006.

  knew her real name when she died: TPOAR, p. 72.

  first book she purchased in America: Jeff Walker, taped unpublished interview with John Ridpath, an associate professor at York University in Toronto and a member of the board of ARI, 1991. Ridpath claims to own this book. AR also purchased English translations of Beyond Good and Evil and The Anti-Christ, all in 1917 Modern Library editions (EOTF, p. 24).

  Russian-Jewish “greenhorns”: Author interview with FB, March 18, 2004. “We brought over anybody who wanted to come. She wasn’t the only one.”

  rating of four out of five in her journal: Russian Writings on Hollywood, p. 190.

  She had been invited to stay: Author interview with Susan Belton, October 24, 2006.

  after some difficulty about the family schedule: Author interview with FB, March 18, 2004; taped interview with Minna Goldberg, FB, and MS, conducted by BB, February 20, 1983.

  parents slept in the front bedroom: “Ayn Rand’s Family and Friends.”

  Harry Portnoy: Eva Portnoy, née Kaplan, seems to have been the sister of Anna Rosenbaum’s father, Berko Kaplan.

  occupied a back alcove: Taped interview with Minna Goldberg, JB, and MS, conducted by BB, February 20, 1983.

  referred to as “conquering Hollywood”: Author interview with FB, March 18, 2004.

  She wrote these in Russian: AR, p. 32. However, in 1983 Minna Goldberg told BB that AR wrote in halting English and that a cousin put her writing in “better English” (taped interview with Minna Goldberg, FB, and MS, conducted by BB, Chicago, February 20, 1983). As to who translated or polished these early scenarios, Sarah Lipton’s grandson, Roger Salamon, recalled that his mother, Beatrice Collier, did (100 Voices, Roger Salamon, p. 260).

  she let the hot water run: 100 Voices, Harvey Portnoy, p. 28. Typhoid and cholera were common illnesses in St. Petersburg after the revolution. AR would be “phobic” about germs (as Minna Goldberg put it in a taped interview with BB in 1983) until she died.

  “I’m Sitting on Top of the World”: Author interview with FB, June 21, 2004. Fern sang the song for me as AR had sung it.

  substituted “z’s” for American “th’s”: Harry Binswanger, “Recollections of AR,” talk presented to the NYU Objectivist Club, November 20, 2007.

  where she was able to eat as much as she wanted: Author interview with FB, June 21, 2004; TPOAR, p. 76.

  “as though the subject didn’t interest her”: Author interview with FB, March 18, 2004; TPOAR, p. 71.

  “Yessir, That’s My Baby”: McConnell, “Recollections of AR I.”

  American proletarian novels: 100 Voices, NR, p. 9.

  “all she talked about was what she was going to be and going to do”: TPOAR, p. 71.

  “being of self-made soul”: AS, p. 934.

  “I felt I was not yet in an American city”: TPOAR, p. 69.

  She spent her time in movie theaters: Author correspondence with FB, December 16, 2004; “Ayn Rand’s Family and Friends.”

  138 movies between late February and August 1926: Russian Writings on Hollywood, pp. 190–202.

  her then-favorite film director: TPOAR, p. 77.

  read and even think in her new language: Letter to Lev Bekkerman, August 28, 1926 (LOAR, p. 1). The letter was written in Russian and is the only surviving letter from AR’s early years in America, according to LOAR editor Berliner.

  picked up period words and phrases: The Skyscraper, July—September 1927 (JOAR, p. 8).

  a letter, written in Russian: Letter to Lev Bekkerman, August 28, 1926 (LOAR, p. 1).

  Sarah Lipton inveigled a film distributor: Author interview with Roger Salamon, Sarah Lipton’s grandson, July 2004.

  By late August 1926, she was ready to go: Author interview with FB, June 21, 2004.

  four completed scenarios: AR:SOL, DVD.

  “a noble crook”: Quoted in TPOAR, p. 73.

  “heavy, hopeless stupidity”: circa February 1928 (JOAR, pp. 24–25).

  they believed she would be famous: Author interview with FB, June 21, 2004.

  tart stories were still being told: Author interview with FB, June 21, 2004. Fern’s mother, Minna Goldberg, “had some very strong feelings about her,” Fern told me. “She couldn’t wait to get rid of Ayn.”

  “Rolls-Royce and a mink coat”: “I didn’t get five cents,” said Minna Goldberg in a 1983 taped interview with BB. Said Roger Salamon, Fern’s cousin, “The family was annoyed because when Ayn got into the upper brackets she forgot where she came from and how she got there. There was a feeling of—shall I say disappointment? I’m being kind.” Author interview with Roger Salamon, October 30, 2006; also, author interview with FB, April 13, 2004.

  On return visits—one in 1949: Letter to Pincus Berner, September 10, 1949 (LOAR, p. 456).

  and one or two in the 1960s: Author correspondence with FB, April 25, 2005.

  acolytes told newspapers that she had no family in America: Author interview with FB, March 18, 2004.

  “She never talked about her family”: Taped interview with Minna Goldberg, FB, and MS, conducted by BB, February 20, 1983.

  “The [extended] family had enough money”: Author interview with Susan Belton, October 24, 2006.

  she made up her mind to marry: The basics of this version of the story are told by JB in “An Illustrated Life” and by Michael Paxton in his film and companion book, AR:SOL. Both JB and Paxton had access to the Ayn Rand Papers.

  the nerve to ask his name: AR told this version to a reporter in 1932 (“Russian Girl Finds End of the Rainbow in Hollywood,” Chicago Times, September 26, 1932).

  she saw him before he saw her: TPOAR, pp. 76–77.

  “She never left a thing to chance”: Author interview with FB, March 18, 2004; said Roger Salamon, “There were no coincidences in Ayn’s life. What Ayn wanted to do, she did.”

  proper and delightful Hollywood Studio Club: TPOAR, p. 75; AR, p. 33.

  created specifically to shelter aspiring actresses: At various times, the Studio Club housed Maureen O’Sullivan, Donna Reed, Marilyn Monroe, Kim Novak, and other stars of screen and stage.

  brand-new quarters on Lodi Place: “Studio Club Opens Tomorrow,” Los Angeles Times, May 6, 1926, p. A7.

  residents had use of a well-stocked library: Grace Kingsley, “Film Club is Joy Haven,” Los Angeles Times, September 5, 1921, p. II, 9.

  typically a waiting list: “Studio Club Opens Tomorrow,” p. A7.

  Mrs. Cecil B. DeMille: “Studio Club Bids Called,” Los Angeles Times, May 8, 1925, p. A1.

  as he later claimed he did: TPOAR, p. 77.

  told them her new first name: AR: SOL, p. 70. AR and her family wrote hundreds of letters to each other from 1926 to 1936, but only the family’s letters to AR survive; hers were lost during the Nazi blockade of Leningrad in World War II (McConnell, “Recollections of Ayn Rand I,” based on interviews with AR’s sister NR). As to how AR and her parents and sisters overcame the problem of Soviet censors, BB recalled AR telling her that they wrote to each other through a third-party contact in Finland (interview with BB, September 15, 2005). Chances are, their mail would have been opened and read in any case.

  “the embodiment of the world’s glory and glamour”: “Home Atmosphere.”

  In 1926, the Hollywood film studios: Cecil B. DeMille, The Autobiography of Cecil B. DeMille, David Hayne, ed. (New York: Grandland Publishing, 1989; originally Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1959).

  During her first day on the set: TPOAR, p. 77.

  she complained: TPOAR, p. 78.

  a woman named E. K. Adams: Payroll files, Cecil B. DeMille Collection, L. Tom Perry S
pecial Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, box 778, folder 1.

  “like last year’s newspaper”: The Art of Fiction, pp. 75–76.

  “I still hate [that woman] to this day”: TPOAR, p. 78.

  spoke of her early days in Hollywood as “grim”: Zeanette Moore, “Studio Club Bolsters Film Novices’ Courage,” Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1945, p. B1.

  dislike the movie capital of America and its “barbarians”: Ayn Rand, book review of Lillian Gish: The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me (by Lillian Gish with Ann Pinchot), The Objectivist, November 1969, p. 751.

  “an intruder with all the world laughing at [her]”: Letter to Marjorie Williams, June 18, 1936 (LOAR, p. 32). In the same letter, AR first states a theme that will become a motif in TF and AS. In thanking Williams for the Studio Club’s help to gifted women, she writes: “Who is more worthy of help—the subnormal or the above-normal? Which of the two suffers more acutely: the misfit, who doesn’t know what he is missing, or the talented one who knows it only too well?”

  $7.50 a day: AR, p. 36; The Autobiography of Cecil B. DeMille, p. 281.

  enough to pay her room and board: TPOAR, p. 78.

  she was able to borrow: BBTBI.

  first professional effort in English: A manuscript of His Dog is on file in the Cecil B. DeMille Collection, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, box 1017, folder 6, with the following comment written in DeMille’s hand: “Do not return, as this was written only as a test and for her instruction.”

  competent set piece: The same story was adapted very differently by another writer and released in 1927, starring Joseph Schildkraut. AR saw the movie in August and rated it a “four-minus” on a scale of one to five (Russian Writings on Hollywood, p. 207).

  earning twenty-five dollars a week: “Summary of Charges to Future Productions,” May through September 1927, from the Cecil B. DeMille Collection, box 783, folder 20.

  The Angel of Broadway: “Completed Productions” for the week ending April 14, 1927, from the Cecil B. DeMille Archives Collection, box 784, folder 1. The script was rewritten and released in the fall of 1927. It starred Leatrice Joy and Ivan Lebedeff, with the writing credit given to Lenore J. Coffee. American Film Index Catalog, taken from NYT, November 6, 1927.

  In Craig’s Wife: Craig’s Wife, adapted by the original playwright and another writer, was released in 1928. AR’s versions of Angel of Broadway and Craig’s Wife can be found in the Cecil B. DeMille Collection box 1017, folders 6, 15, and 24.

  frustrated by the secondhandedness of the work: TPOAR, p. 83.

  Rand’s fingerprints are especially evident: Notes for The Skyscraper, July—September 1927 (JOAR, pp. 6–15).

  The Skyscraper ends with a triumphant architect: The final film version of The Skyscraper, featuring William Boyd and Alan Hale, was released in its original form, more or less—as the story of two steelwork-ers—in April 1928. The adaptation credit went to Elliot Clawson and Tay Garnett. American Film Index Catalog, taken from Film Daily, April 15, 1928.

  “Achievement is the aim of life”: July—September 1927 (JOAR, p. 8).

  Born Charles Francis O’Connor … in 1897: “Mrs. O’Connor Dies Today,” Lorain [Ohio] Times Herald, July 19, 1911, p. 1. Also, author interview with FO’s niece MW, June 21, 2004.

  a hard-drinking Catholic steel-worker: “Pioneer Lorain Steelman Dies,” obituary of Dennis O’Connor, FO’s father, Lorain [Ohio] Journal, December 22, 1938, p. 15.

  Mary Agnes O’Connor became ill with breast cancer: “Mrs. O’Connor Dies Today,” Lorain [Ohio] Times Herald, July 19, 1911, p. 1.

  dropped out of his Catholic high school: O’Connor dropped out of school in the summer of 1911.

  “even more of an atheist than I am”: The Phil Donahue Show, April 29, 1980.

  spelled phonetically: According to RBH and her husband, Dr. Burroughs Hill, friends of AR’s and FO’s during the 1940s, FO could hardly spell. In 1951, the Hills received a thirteen-page letter from FO, the only example of his writing they had ever seen. The letter shocked RBH. “It wasn’t the case of a poor speller,” she said. “He didn’t know how to spell words.” Not wanting anyone to say that FO “wasn’t intelligent,” she destroyed the letter. (Author interview with RBH, May 26, 2005).

  a rubber worker in the tire mills at Akron: Fourteenth Census of the United States: 1920—Population,” State of Ohio, County of Summit, Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

  a film extra for D. W. Griffith: AR:SOL, DVD.

  “Frank had some feminine tendencies”: Taped interview with Millicent Patton, a friend of AR and the O’Connor brothers from 1929 through the 1930s, in California and New York, conducted by BB, December 5, 1982.

  was his first part in Hollywood: AR:SOL, DVD.

  later told the tale of their meeting and courtship: TPOAR, pp. 78–94.

  “What I couldn’t forget [was] the profile”: AR, p. 35.

  “it was an absolute that this was the man I wanted”: TPOAR, p. 81.

  he couldn’t understand a word she said: TPOAR, p. 81.

  where eighty-odd young women: “Studio Club Bids Called: Promoters Will Meet at Home of Mrs. DeMille Next Week,” Los Angeles Times, May 8, 1925, p. A1.

  Joe, also an aspiring actor: Author interview with MW, FO’s niece, June 21, 2004.

  “grim and remote”: TPOAR, p. 92.

  bought black silk lingerie: TPOAR, p. 92.

  the studio had stopped providing her with fulltime work: From January until April, DeMille paid AR only fifty dollars, the equivalent of two weeks’ work and the smallest sum paid to any of the studio’s dozen writers (“Administration Expenses,” January 1, 1928 to April 14, 1928 [Cecil B. DeMille Collection, Harold B. Lee Library, box 784, folder 1]).

  DeMille closed his studio: The Autobiography of Cecil B. DeMille, p. 290.

  didn’t take Rand with him: DeMille took a dozen or so of his former staff members with him to MGM, including scriptwriter Jeannie Macpherson (note dated July 2, 1928 [Cecil B. DeMille Collection, Harold B. Lee Library, mss. 1400, box 778, folder 1]).

  she was left without a job: She, in turn, lost some of her reverence for DeMille in 1928. She came to see him as a “box-office chaser” (BBTBI).

  worked as a waitress: “New Yorker at Large,” p. 4.

  famous within a year of reaching Hollywood: BBTBI.

  borrow small sums from her Chicago relatives: Author interview with FB, June 21, 2004.

  twenty-five-dollar monthly subsidy from them: Author correspondence with Michael Berliner, September 27, 2005, who consulted unpublished Rosenbaum family letters on my behalf. In a 1997 interview conducted by ARI oral historians for 100 Voices, AR’s youngest sister recalled that AR had sent the family photographs of herself from Hollywood and that Anna and Natasha had taken them to the state bank and received permission to send AR money every month.

  the custom in the movie industry: Author interview with Marian L. Smith, historian, History Office and Library, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security, May 19, 2005, who said, “I don’t think they would be extending [a visa] for a waitress, but if she had a patron like DeMille—when the movie people wanted [a visa] extended, then it would be extended.”

  Anna actually urged her to come back: “Ayn Rand in Russia.”

  working in a restaurant alongside Nick and Joe: TPOAR, p. 91

  to see the woman in Ayn Rand: The phrase comes from notes AR made on Kira Argounova’s feelings for Leo Kovalensky and Andrei, circa 1930 (JOAR, p. 50).

  romance should never be mixed with suffering or pity: AS, p. 348.

  a woman should avoid cooking or cleaning: “The Husband I Bought,” TEAR, p. 13.

  “an answering voice, an answering hymn, an echo”: Ideal, an unproduced play written in 1934, TEAR, p. 287.

  practiced her new language: These letters have been lost, according to the ARI.


  “put so much weight on success and so little on failure”: “Ayn Rand in Russia.”

  signed two unpublished stories from that period “O. O. Lyons”: Editor’s preface to “Escort,” TEAR, p. 103. Rand admirer Fred Cookinham points out that “O. O.” probably referred to Oscar and Oswald, stuffed lions given as a gift to Rand by O’Connor.

  absorbing the civil-libertarian iconoclasm: AR would have known of Garrett’s work, but whether or not she actually read it is a subject of dispute. Journalist Justin Raimondo accuses her of pirating narrative devices from Garrett’s The Driver (1922) when writing AS (Justin Raimondo, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement [Burlingame, Calif.: Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993], pp. 196–205).

  Calumet “K”: Letter to Barbara Brandt, December 11, 1945 (LOAR, p. 252).

  books she didn’t like: TPOAR, p. 101.

  “The Husband I Bought” (circa 1926): As the story appears in TEAR, it seems too nuanced and sophisticated to have been written in 1926 and gives the impression of having been edited (TEAR, pp. 3–39).

  exercise in grieving for Lev Bekkerman: My thanks to LP for making this point in his introduction to “The Husband I Bought,” TEAR, p. 4.

  “human herds”: July—September 1927 (JOAR, p. 35).

  strangle and dismember an eight-year-old Los Angeles girl: “Marion Parker’s Murder Confessed by Hickman,” Los Angeles Times, December 27, 1927.

  “A strong man can eventually trample society”: July—September 1927 (JOAR, p. 38).

  “All the crimes in history have always been perpetrated by the mob”: Letter to John Temple Graves, August 12, 1936 (LOAR, p. 34).

  “She hated being afraid”: Author interview with Joan and Dr. Allan Blumenthal, March 24, 2004.

  “From now on, [you will permit] no thought about yourself”: July—September 1927 (JOAR, p. 48).

  Ayn Rand and Frank O’Connor were married: In his book AR:SOL, Paxton states that AR’s temporary visa was set to expire permanently in April 1929. Yet based on handwritten notes recording her visa extensions on the official ship manifest of the S.S. De Grasse, her final extension was granted in July 1928, suggesting that her visa had already expired by the time of her marriage (De Grasse Ship Manifest, February 19, 1926; vol. 8626, p. 2, line 13, National Archives Microfilm Publication T715, roll 3800, “Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, N.Y, 1897–1957,” National Archives and Records Administration Northeast Region, New York, N.Y.).