Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life (1996) - full transcript

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"If a
life can have a theme song,

"and I believe
every worthwhile one has,

"mine is a religion,
an obsession, or a mania,

"or all of these
expressed in one word...

"individualism.

"l was born
with that obsession,

"and I've never seen and do not
know now a cause more worthy,

"more misunderstood,
more seemingly hopeless,

and more tragically needed."

Ayn Rand,
novelist and philosopher,

wrote these words
in 1936.



"Call it fate or irony,"
she wrote,

"but I was born,
of all countries on earth,

"in the one lease suitable
for a fanatic of individualism,

"Russia

"l decided to be a writer
at the age of nine,

"and everything I have done
was integrated to that purpose.

"l am an American
by choice and conviction.

"l was born in Europe,
but I came to America

"because this was the country
where one could be

fully free to write."

Ayn Rand developed
the theory that everyone has

a subconscious view
of the universe

and of man's place in it.

It is a person's most personal
emotional response to existence,



and what she termed
a "sense of life."

And now to our story.

Down through history,
various political

and philosophical movements
have sprung up,

but most of them died.

Some, however, like democracy
or communism

take hold and affect
the entire world.

Here in the United States,
perhaps the most challenging

and unusual new philosophy

has been forged
by a novelist, Ayn Rand.

IVls. Rand's point of view
is still comparatively unknown

in America, but if
it ever did take hold,

it would revolutionize
ourhves.

And Ayn, to begin with, I wonder
if I can ask you to capsulize

I know this is difficult
can I ask you to capsulize

your philosophy?
What is Randism?

First of all, I do not
call it "Randism,"

and I don't like
that name.

I call it objectivism.

All right.

Meaning a philosophy based
on objective reality.

Let me explain it
as briefly as I can.

First, my philosophy
is based on the concept

that reality exists
as an objective absolute,

that man's mind, reason,
is his means of perceiving it,

and that man needs
a rational morality.

I am primarily the creator
of a new code of morality

which has so far been
believed impossible.

Namely, a morality
not based on "face"

- On faith?
- Not on faith,

not on arbitrary whim,

not on emotion,
not on arbitrary edicts,

mystical or social,
but on reason

a morality which can be proved
by means of logic,

which can be demonstrated
to be true and necessary.

February 2nd, 1905,

St. Petersburg, Russia.

Alisa Rosenbaum
came into world

wrought with revolution
and oppression.

It was a country
on the brink of war

not a war between nations,

but a war
against the individual,

a war that would make way
for a form of collectivism

history was never
to forget.

Even at an early age,

Ayn Rand did not believe in God
or in destiny,

but she did hold
the conviction

that there was a battle
she must fight,

a battle
in the name of a truth

that was as clear to her
as the red flags

and bloodstained streets
of her native St. Petersburg,

a battle to hold
an individual spirit

above the dark, murderous horde
that was enveloping her country.

"l had to get out of Russia,"
she later wrote,

"if I wanted a chance
ever to be alive."

Ayn Rand did
get out of Russia.

She escaped to America
and became

one of the most controversial
thinkers of the 20th century.

Her philosophy gained
a worldwide audience,

and her ideas are now
a part of university textbooks

and curricula.

Her novels, The Fountainhead
and Atlas Shrugged,

sell over 200,000 copies
each year,

and according to a joint survey
by the Library of Congress

and the Book of the Month club
in 1991,

Atlas Shrugged was named

the second most influential book
for Americans,

following the Bible.

Ayn's father was a self-made man
who ran his own pharmacy.

He created a middle class
lifestyle for his wife, for Ayn,

and her two younger sisters,
Natasha and Nora.

Mr. Rosenbaum was conscientious
about his work,

and was proud
of his success.

Ayn saw him as a principled man
of unbending character.

Ayn's mother saw herself
as an intellectual,

attending lectures,
French theater,

and holding salons
in her home.

Prone to fits of anger,

Mrs. Rosenbaum would
often comment to Ayn

that raising children
was a hateful duty.

Ayn, however, didn't take
her mother literally,

since her mother showed
a great deal of concern

for the family's health
and welfare.

Ayn Rand talked very little
about Russia

or her past in Russia.
As I understand,

she felt closer to her father
than to her mother.

She felt that she
and her father

had an intellectual
understanding,

whereas she and her mother
were completely at odds.

She always would preface
any statement against her mother

by her consciousness of how
indebted she was to her mother,

'cause mother was the one
who helped her leave Russia

and insisted that Ayn would die
if she had to stay in Russia.

Natasha, 21/2
years younger than Ayn,

was very feminine

and preoccupied with boys
and clothes.

Nora shared with Ayn
a common interest in books,

movies,
and movie actors.

She wanted to be an artist,
and drew voraciously

on any piece of paper
she could find.

Full of color and glamour,
Nora's imaginative paintings

expressed Ayn's sense
of what the world

outside the dreary
Russian boundaries could be.

But unlike her sisters,
more than anything,

Ayn longed to be
an adult entity.

Not particularly outgoing
in a social setting,

she would become violently
aroused when discussing ideas.

She had no interest
in approval or acceptance

from her parents or others,
consciously aware

that anything she valued
had to come from within herself.

This remarkable independence
was to be the benchmark

of her own distinctive
outlook on life.

In the summers of her youth,

Ayn and her family traveled
beyond the borders of Russia

to resorts
in Switzerland and Finland.

Days were spent
on the beach or in parks,

where military bands
often played.

This was Ayn's
introduction

to what was to become
her favorite music,

which she later referred to
as "tiddlywink music."

Tiddlywink
music was basically

turn-of-the-century
popular music,

of which there's
no equivalent today.

Completely joyful,

but unserious, unheavy,
lighthearted, fast rhythms.

There was an old song she liked
called Get Out and Get Under

to crank
your model T Ford.

That was her top favorite
sense of life music.

It was the shimmering
notes of the tiddlywink music

that transported
the young Ayn Rand

to a world
of light and air,

a world she could now
only imagine, a world abroad.

Noticing that Ayn
didn't enjoy reading

the dark, Russian fairytales
or children's stories

that her sisters liked,

Ayn's mother subscribed
to a French boys' magazine.

The Mysterious Valley was
a Rudyard Kipling-like serial.

It was the story
of English officers in India

who were being attacked
by huge, trained tigers

and carried off
into the jungle.

An illustration
of the hero, Cyrus Paltons,

who does not appear
until well into the story,

mesmerized Ayn.

She told me several times
that that was the book

that she read at nine
The Mysterious Valley

and that Cyrus, the British hero
of that story,

was her first real concept
of a hero,

that she was
in love with him

so far as you could be
at the age of nine,

and that all of her later heroes
for developments from that.

This is why when she got
to We The Living,

and she did not yet feel
ready to write a novel

about man, the hero,
she gave the character

the lead character,
the woman, the name Kira,

which is the female
of "Cyrus" in Russian.

One scene in the story

depicts the English prisoners
being carried

through the streets
in a cage.

They're all on the floor
of the cage, cringing

Only Cyrus stands,
gripping the bars.

Self-confident and defiant,
he swears at the evil Raja

that he will get even
no matter how much torture

he must go through.

"He's not afraid of anything,
and he has a purpose,"

Ayn thought.
"Intelligence, independence,

"courage"
the heroic man

this is what's important
in life."

Cyrus was the projection
of purposefulness and strength

that now became
the masculine qualities

at the core of Ayn's romantic
and literary desires.

She thought of
herself as a woman,

enjoyed being a woman,

but she was the opposite
of a feminist.

Man worship was
very important to her,

and her idea of femininity
was that it was

a woman's admiration
for masculine qualities.

Now that Ayn had discovered

the kind story and hero
she could admire,

she made the conscious decision
to become a writer.

Her mother took her
to see her first movie,

and Ayn quickly developed
a passion

for writing
movie scenarios.

Then, one day, from her house
on the big public square

in St. Petersburg,
she saw red flags

rise up on the streets.

Armed Cossacks appeared,

and one man descended
from a horse.

He walked into the crowd,
raised his sword,

and then brought it down.

The year was 1917.
A revolution had begun.

Called
the Bloodless Revolution,

it was led by Alexander Kerensky
against the czar.

A great orator,
Kerensky inspired

an atmosphere of hope
in the people of Russia.

Amidst an unbridled
exchange of ideas,

he promised freedom
from oppression,

and became the head
of a provisional government.

To the 12-year-old Ayn,
it seemed as if

he was speaking up for her
and for individualism,

but in October
of that same year,

another revolution
took place.

Ayn watched helplessly
as the Bolsheviks marched in

and closed
her father's business.

Placing a red seal
over the door,

the family was now
officially expected to starve.

Spurred on
by the revolution,

Ayn soon formed the conviction
that communism,

the idea that man
should live for the state,

was an abhorrent concept.

She read newspapers
and political pamphlets,

and made many anti-communist
entries in her diary.

She continued
to write stories,

but her manner of thinking
had changed.

Since her interest
in politics

had intensified
during the revolution,

she wanted to create
much more serious plots

and important themes.

Aspiring to the same caliber
of writing as Dostoyevsky,

she was inspired
on an intensely personal level

by the books her mother
would read to her grandmother,

the books of Victor Hugo.

"Hugo gives me the feeling
of entering a cathedral,"

she once wrote.

For Ayn,
discovering such books

as The Man Who Laughs
and Les Misérables

was tantamount
to stepping into Atlantis.

Although she disagreed
with Hugo's explicit philosophy,

she became consciously aware
that she wanted to write

with the same literary grandeur
and heroic scale.

She thought, "This was how
one should view life."

Not willing to accept
any idea on faith,

at the age of 12,

Ayn Rand seriously weighed
the concept of God.

"if God represented
the highest possible to man,"

she reasoned, "then man,
by nature, is inferior to God,

and can never reach
that ideal."

Considering this a degrading
and unfounded claim,

she simply made an entry
in her diary.

"Today, I have decided
to be an atheist."

The Orthodox Russian religion
that permeated the country

was never a serious concern
for her.

She knew that those
around her were not

representative of mankind.

Someday, she would find
her kind of people

rational, purposeful,
happy people,

and that a proper life
would begin beyond the border.

Ayn, in general,
hated Russia,

pre-communist
and post-communist.

She thought it was a mystical,
backward, uncivilized country,

that it was perfectly logical
that the czarist regime

should give rise
to communism,

and that the only thing
to do is get

as far from it
as she could.

It is the ugliest,
and incidentally,

most mystical country
on Earth.

But they're the ones
that decry atheism.

They're singing
yoursong

Oh, no.

I'm sorry, decry Christianity
I'm sorry.

"Decry religion" is
what I meant to say.

They really don't.
They have

a materialistic mysticism
of their own,

because if the mystics,
the religious people,

tell you the mind
it

well, they don't speak
of the mind, but usually

the soul is the only thing
of value about you.

The body is evil,
and the Russians will say,

"No, there isn't such a thing
as a soul or a mind.

There's only your body."
it's materialism.

They believe that
you are not a man,

but a collection of...
atoms.

And give that body
to the state

for the collective effort
of the

That's right,
for the good of the whole,

and sacrifice
to the state,

and whoever says it is
or wants to be the state.

In 1918, Mr. Rosenbaum moved

his family out of St. Petersburg
to escape the communists.

Thinking the Bolsheviks would
not remain in power for long,

he was optimistic
that the family would return

to reclaim his business
and his property.

Almost killed by bandits
near Odessa,

they finally made it
to the Crimean Peninsula,

where he opened
an apothecary.

The country was riddled
with black markets

and food shortages.

It wasn't long before his
new business was nationalized.

In 1921, Ayn graduated
from high school,

while the Red Army
now also occupied the Crimea.

Mr. Rosenbaum,
still hoping to regain

his rightful belongings,
decided to move the family

back to St. Petersburg,
which was now called Petrograd.

It was on this trip

that the 16-year-old Ayn caught
her first sight of Moscow.

She was suddenly struck
by the thought

of how many people
there were in the world.

She felt a door opening,

and the nature of her ambition
took shape

to communicate
through her writing

that life had a profound
and special meaning.

Every argument for
the existence of God

is incomplete, improper,
and has been refuted,

and people go on and on
because they want to believe.

Well, I regard it as evil
to place your emotions,

your desire above the evidence
of what your mind knows.

Okay, and I regard it
as intellectually lazy

to look at the universe
and to suggest,

as you seem to be doing,
that this is all some accident.

I didn't say that.

Well, how in the world did we
get all this order?

Aren't you impressed
with that?

No, because order
is only, in good cases,

in the minds
of your scientists,

who are able to understand
some part of it,

but there isn't an artificial
order in the universe,

and it's not chance.

What would be the alternative?
Nature.

So the universe

and remember, the universe
is everything that exists--

has always been here,

but you cannot discuss
or know anything

about what was here
before anything existed.

That's what you're doing
with the idea of God,

- speaking philosophically.
- True.

You say you need someone
to explain the order,

but what will you then
have to explain God?

At 16, Ayn entered

the University of Leningrad
is history major.

Although teacher after teacher
bored her,

it was the discovery
of great philosophers,

such as Aristotle
and St. Thomas Aquinas,

that intensely
aroused her.

For Ayn, Aristotle's belief
that there is only one reality,

the one the man perceives,

and that his mind is
his only tool of knowledge,

became the core
of her own philosophic thought.

It also conflicted with
the dominant philosophic view,

originated by Plato,
that there is

a supernatural realm
beyond the world we see.

When she was a college student
at the University of Leningrad

at age 19 or 20,

she took a course
in ancient philosophy

from Professor Lossky,
who was a distinguished expert

in the field
of ancient philosophy.

When it came time for her
to take her final exam,

he asked her questions
almost exclusively about Plato,

and none about Aristotle.

Of course she despised Plato
even then.

And he said to her,

"You don't seem to agree
with Plato,"

implying, "Well, what are
your views?"

And her answer was,
"My views are not yet

"part of the history
of philosophy,

but they will be."

So that was another example
both of her objectivity--

that she didn't want
to argue with a Platonist

about the merits
of Plato and Aristotle

being just a student,
her independence--

that it didn't bother her
that he disagreed,

and she wasn't out
to sell him on her views,

and of her ability to counter
the male prejudice that existed

in that Victorian society
against women intellectuals.

Under the communist regime,

life had degenerated
into a new level of hell.

Hunger had engulfed
the nation,

and there were deadly epidemics
of typhus, the disease of dirt.

Very outspoken at first,

Ayn was reckless
in making anti-Soviet remarks

at the university.

She witnessed many purges
that resulted in students

and their families being sent
to Siberia ata moment's notice.

Realizing she was placing
her entire family in danger,

she became more cautious while
expressing her point of view.

But amidst the drudgery,

Ayn found something
to look forward to.

She discovered
the world of operettas.

She walked to school
instead of taking the tram

so she could afford
to buy tickets.

She waited four hours
in the cold to be first in line

to see The Gypsy Princess
by Kélméln,

Lehélr's
Where The Lark Sings,

or Mill6cker's
The Beggar Student.

Here, she saw a world
of top hats and ballrooms.

Sometimes,
the stage would display

lighted streets
of a foreign city,

and she would later think,

"it was the world into which
I had to grow up someday,

the world I had to reach."

But it was the flicker
of projectors

and the images on movie screens
that truly enraptured her.

She and her sister Nora

loved the glamorous,
plot-driven films

of Cecil B. DeMille,

and the expressionistic
Siegfried

by her favorite German director,
Fritz Lang,

became a glowing source
of inspiration to her.

Movies like The Mark of Zorro,
The Oyster Princess,

The Indian Tomb,
and The Isle of Lost Ships

had a sense of adventure

with self-reliant heroes
accomplishing great feats.

After graduating from college
in the fall of 1924,

she entered a school
for Screenwriters,

called
the Cinema Institute.

The first year at the Institute
was focused on acting,

and Ayn diligently studied
the art of performing

for the silent screen.

With an insatiable appetite
for anything abroad,

Ayn would sit through
two shows of a movie

just to catch a glimpse

of the New York skyline
in a scene.

Like a shot in the arm
and a life-saving transfusion,

and it was wiping
Russia as a world

out of her consciousness

and inciting her to write
stories of her own--

stories completely untouched
by the misery

of the life she was
desperate to escape.

The Russian sense of life
was mystical, hopeless,

authoritarian, obedient,
malevolent,

and the American sense of life
was optimistic, can-do,

achievement-oriented,
benevolent.

They were exact opposites.
The Americans wanted

the world to make sense.
They believed in common sense.

The Russians were deep
in this incredible mysticism

of either the communist
dialectic process

or holy mother Russia
from the religious side,

so the two countries were
diametric opposites,

and she had the misfortune
or fortune to be born

a thorough American
in her soul

in the heart of this Russian
religion turning into communism.

So it was antipathy
from day one.

While still attending
the Cinema Institute in 1925,

Ayn also worked
at a meaningless job

as a museum guide guide,

but she went through her days
with only one thought--

to go abroad.

Sympathetic to Ayn's goal,

Mrs. Rosenbaum wrote
to relatives in Chicago

and asked if Ayn could
visit them in America.

In the fall of 1925,

Ayn received a foreign passport
that was valid for six months.

In order to secure
a first-class cabin

on a boat to America,
Mrs. Rosenbaum sold her jewelry.

At a small going-away party,

Ayn could sense
her impending freedom.

But it was
an acquaintance

speaking in a hushed,
hopeless voice that moved her.

He said, "if they ask you
in America,

"tell them that Russia
is a huge cemetery,

and that we are all
slowly dying."

A short time later,
Ayn watched that cemetery recede

past her train window.

She'd promised
to tell them in America,

but now, like a heart
skipping beats in anticipation,

she made her way
across Europe.

Stopping in Berlin,
she visited a relative

and celebrated
her 21st birthday.

Finally,
from the deck of her ship

as it set to sea
from Le Havre,

it struck her
that she would not be back.

This is what she would later
call an overture--

the turning point
that she'd been waiting for.

In February, 1926,

Ayn's boat arrived
in New York Harbor,

where a heavy fog
had settled in.

Immigrants were asked
to wait in a salon on the ship

while officials
checked their papers.

When Ayn finally
reached the deck,

she was crushed to find out that
the boat had already docked.

She had missed
the Statue of Liberty

and the New York skyline.

But then, as she descended
from the boat,

a light snow
began to fall.

She later described
the experience.

"it was dark by then.

"It was kind of early evening,
I think--about 7:00 or so,

"and seeing the first
lighted skyscrapers,

"it was snowing very faintly,
and I think I began to cry,

"because I remember feeling
the snowflakes

and the tears
sort of together."

Staying with relatives,
she spent a few days in New York

and saw Broadway at night
for the first time.

Stunned by the neon signs,

she also saw her first movie
in America.

She then went on
to Chicago,

anxious to start her career
as a screenwriter

and get out on her own.

Not yet able to write
very well in English,

she thought she could at least
write for silent films,

which don't rely
on dialogue.

One of her relatives in Chicago
owned a movie theater,

and Ayn went to the movies
daily.

This helped her master
the English language

enough to write
four movie originals

over a period of six months.

One was called
The Skyscraper,

which was a wild,
exaggerated story

about a noble crook who jumps
from skyscraper to skyscraper

with the aid
of the parachute.

Aware of Ayn's passion
for becoming a screenwriter,

her relatives in Chicago
were able,

through a movie distributor
they knew, to secure

a letter of recommendation
to the DeMille Studios.

Borrowing $100,

Ayn set off by train
for Hollywood in August of 1926.

Upon her arrival,

she found residence
at the Hollywood Studio Club,

a home created
especially for young women

seeking a start
in the movie business.

It housed
other young hopefuls

who later became Ginger Rogers,
Marilyn Monroe, and Kim Novak.

Wanting to adopt
a new professional name,

she chose Ayn.

Using a Finnish,
feminine name,

pronounced, "Ain-a," she dropped
the final A, and got Ayn.

Keeping the R from Rosenbaum,
she chose Rand for her surname.

She also hoped that her new name
would protect her family

from the anti-Soviet remarks

she was bound to make
in America.

The next day, with letter
of recommendation in hand,

she set out
for the DeMille Studios.

Arriving at the gate, she went
to the publicity department,

where she was interviewed for
a junior screenwriting position.

After being told
there were no jobs,

she walked
back to the gate.

Suddenly, she was stunned
to see DeMille himself

sitting in an open roadster.

As he drove past the girl
with the large eyes

staring at him, he stopped
and asked where she was from.

When she explained that she had
just arrived from Russia,

and that he was
her favorite director,

he invited her
to accompany him.

Despite her shock
at riding with DeMille,

she told him that she wanted
to be a screenwriter.

Driving through the back lot
of the studio,

they arrived at the set
of DeMille's current picture,

The King of Kings.

DeMille explained that if Ayn
wanted to work in pictures,

she should learn
by watching.

She spent the day observing
the film company at work.

She breathlessly watched
as they set up shots

and DeMille directed
the actors.

She was invited to join
the cast and crew for lunch,

but politely declined
despite her hunger pangs.

The at the end of the day,
DeMille located her

and gave her
a personally signed pass

to return to set
the next day.

For several days,
DeMille continued to give Ayn

personal passes
to the set.

He would approach her
between shots,

and explain the process
of filmmaking.

He found Ayn's background
exotic,

and he nicknamed her
Caviar.

When he discovered her
precarious financial situation,

he immediately offered her
a job as an extra.

All right, now, you people--
you townspeople,

over beyond the gates there,

come on, now, work
yourselves into--

into the emotion
of such a scene.

Don't be extras.
Be a nation.

She finally wrote to her family

and informed them
of her new name,

and that she was officially
in the movies.

I would say that Ayn Rand's life

was a focal point for their
concern as a family in Russia.

They would receive
a letter from her,

and the whole family
from St. Petersburg

would come over--the aunts,
the uncles, the cousins--

and there would be a reading
of a letter from her.

Her sister, Nora, with whom
Ayn Rand shared

a tremendous interest
in movies,

would draw little pictures
at the bottom of the letters

showing "Ayn Rand"
in lights.

So Ayn Rand getting
into the movies was a goal,

and the most exciting thing
that ever happened.

When she finally told them
about her meeting

with Cecil B. DeMille
in 1926,

it must have been like
an earthquake to her family,

and her father,
who is not very expressive,

wrote that he could not sleep
all night.

As an extra, Ayn
was making $7.50 a day.

For several months,

DeMille would call her
in to work

whenever possible.

She slowly warmed up
to the cast,

which included
H.B. Warner as Christ

and Joseph Schildkraut
as Judas.

Schildkraut even took her
out to lunch, flirted with her,

and then gave her
an autographed picture.

Two days after securing
a job with Del\/lille,

she was riding the Streetcar
to the studio,

and spotted a tall, handsome man
across the aisle from her.

She thought,
"This is my ideal face."

It was a face she later
sketched from memory--

a memory that was actually
love at first sight.

To her surprise,
not only did this man

get off the Streetcar
at the same stop,

he entered the DeMille
studio gate as well.

Frank O'Connor was born
in Lorain, Ohio in 1897,

one of seven children.

After his mother's early death,
he worked his way to New York,

hoping to make it
in the movies.

Helping a driver
change a flat tire

on a Griffith Studios truck,

Frank asked to be taken
to the studio as payment.

A great fan
of D.W_ Griffith,

soon he had his first movie job
in Orphans of the Storm,

starring
Lillian and Dorothy Gish.

Grih'ith's success
with Orphans of the Storm

was to be his last,
and the studio

eventually moved
to California.

At the age of 28,
Frank worked as a steward

on a freighter
through the Panama Canal

to join his brothers
Joe and Nick in Hollywood.

The first job he got
when he arrived

was on The King of Kings.

Now, quietly milling
about the set,

waiting for the next setup,
Frank kept to himself.

At a distance,
Ayn followed him like a camera

and desperately tried to think
of a way to meet him.

A few days later, during a scene
where Christ carries the cross

through the city of Jerusalem,
Ayn watched carefully

as Frank hit his marks
on the first take.

On the second take,
she maneuvered herself

to get in his way.

He stepped on her foot
and apologized.

From that moment on,
they didn't stop talking.

Frank later commented
to his brother Nick,

"Today, I met a very interesting
and funny Russian on the set.

I couldn't understand
a word she said."

Since it was Frank's
last day of work on the film

and they hadn't
exchanged numbers,

Ayn feared she would never
see him again.

Although the casting office
would not give out

Frank's number,
she did not give up hope.

She felt a benevolent
inevitability

that they would
meet again.

Eventually, Ayn gave
her four scenarios

to DeMille to read.

However, the woman in charge
of his scenario department

disliked Ayn on sight

and gave the stories
a very bad report,

calling them improbable,
far-fetched,

and not human enough.

Despite this report,
DeMille hired Ayn

as a junior screenwriter
at $25 a week.

This meant that she would
do treatments

and synopsize
already-purchased properties.

Because DeMille considered
a construction site

an interesting backdrop
for a film,

a novel called The Skyscraper
was the first project

Ayn was assigned to.

Required to do research,

Ayn made an appointment
to visit the construction site

of the Broadway
department store

at the corner
of Hollywood and Vine.

Informed that her appointment
was delayed,

she walked
around the corner

to the library on Ivar Street
to wait.

She entered the building,

and amidst the hush
of turning pages,

she saw Frank O'Connor
reading a book.

Turned out that he too was
waiting for an appointment.

He looked up at her
and smiled in recognition.

They went outside to talk,

and their courtship
officially began.

Ayn was 22
and Frank was 29.

With the Depression
approaching,

DeMille closed his studio
in 1928,

and Ayn could only
find odd jobs.

She was now surviving
on 30 cents a day

and living
on very little food.

Although she had previously been
sending her family money,

they were now sending
some to her.

She continued to write
with fierce persistence

and made notes
to discipline herself.

"From now on," she wrote,
"no thought whatever

"about yourself,
only about your work.

"You don't exist.
You're only a writing engine.

"Don't stop until you
really and honestly know

"that you cannot go on.

Stop admiring yourself.
You are nothing yet."

During this period,
Ayn didn't want Frank to know

she was struggling
or think she needed help.

But he was struggling
as well,

because acting jobs
had become scarce.

Dating for them consisted
of going for walks,

visits to the beach,
and an occasional movie.

After several extensions,

Ayn only had one month left
before her visa was to expire.

Although Frank's brother Nick
joked that he would

marry her to keep her
in America,

there was no need
to discuss the matter.

On April 15th, 1929,

the same month
her visa was to expire,

Ayn and Frank were married
by a judge.

They then drove
through the desert to I\/Iexicali

and spent a sleepless night
in the heat.

The next day, Ayn drove
back into the country

as the wife
of an American.

How does the--
the concept of love--

love for one another--
fit into this philosophy?

You fall in love
with a person

because you regard him or her
as a value,

and because they contribute
to your personal happiness.

Now, you couldn't fall in love
with a person by saying,

"You mean nothing to me.

"I don't care whether you
live or die,

but you need me, and therefore,
I'm in love with you."

If someone offered love
of that kind,

everyone would regard that
as a deadly insult.

That isn't love.

Therefore, romantic love
is a selfish emotion.

It is the choice of a person
as a great value,

and what you fall in love with
is the same values

which you choose
embodied in another person.

She regarded love
as an extremely selfish emotion.

It was a response
to your greatest values

in the personal character
of another person.

So you had to know them well,

and they had to
in all essentials be

exactly what you wanted
from another human being.

If so, it was one
of the greatest of all values,

but it was not
the top value.

She regarded career
as the top value,

because she felt, if you tried
the base a life

exclusively on your relation
to another person,

however wonderful
or however much in love,

it's gonna end up being
a relationship of dependence.

Each person has to have
their own creative goal,

and they must be
like two individuals,

traveling
on the same journey,

but happen to find
that they're going

on the same journey together,
and then love is

a fantastic supplement
to their individual creativity.

With Frank O'Connor by her side,

Ayn continued
her struggle to write

and make ends meet
in Hollywood.

In 1929, she took a job
as a filing clerk

at the RKO wardrobe department
for $20 a week.

Although she hated the job,

it was a financial oasis
in the depression.

In six months,
she earned a raise,

and within a year,
became head of the department.

Soon Ayn and Frank were able
to buy their first car.

Since Frank was
also working,

he presented Ayn
with a made-to-order desk,

a radio, and her first
portable typewriter.

Despite her long hours
in the wardrobe department,

she wrote in every spare moment
she could find.

Even though she officially
made notes for her first novel,

writing for the movies was still
an important goal for her.

She was a tremendous movie fan
in her early years

and kept a diary,
which we found,

of seemingly every movie
she attended

from 1922
until early 1929.

There were 433 entries,

and she kept a detailed record
of every one,

underlining the actors
she liked the best,

and grading the movie.

The actors and actresses
that she liked,

she would give one underline,
that she liked a lot,

she would give
two underlines--

she really loved, she would
give three underlines.

In the back
of the movie diary,

I found a little
piece of paper

in which she had listed
her favorite actors

and actresses.

Many of these actors
and actresses

that she loved in the 1920s
when she was in Russia

were really her window
into civilization,

which is the West
she later met.

One of the interesting things
in this list that she kept

of her favorite movie actors
and actresses,

is to find Gary Cooper
up in number two.

Originally, he hadn't been
on the list at all,

but she saw him in movies,

I think, in probably 1928,

and pushed him
up into number two,

right below Conrad Veidt,
and then she changed the numbers

on everyone below Gary Cooper,
and then, of course,

almost 20 years later,
there's Gary Cooper

playing Howard Roark
in her own movie.

Continuing her
struggle to master English,

she wrote a variety
of short stories and plays.

One such play,
called Ideal,

embraced her passion
for the movies and admiration

for her favorite actress,
Greta Garbo.

The story,
set in Hollywood, 1934,

follows a fictitious movie star,
named Kay Gonda, on her quest

to find one man of integrity
among her fans.

In this scene, we get a glimpse
at an early formulation

of Ayn Rand's ideal man.

I saw a man once,
when I was very young.

He stood on a rock,
high in the mountains.

His arms were spread out,
and his body bent backward,

and I could see him
as an arc against the sky.

He stood still and tense,
like a string trembling

to a note of ecstasy
no man had ever heard.

I've never known
who he was.

I know only that this was
what life should be.

And?

And I came home, and my mother
was sewing supper,

and she was happy because
the roast had a thick gravy,

and she gave a prayer of thanks
to God for it.

Don't listen to me.

Don't look at me like that.

I tried to renounce it.

I thought I must close my eyes
and bear anything,

and learn to live
like the others,

to make me as they were--
to make me forget.

But I can't forget
the man on the rock.

I can't.

While still working at RKO,

Ayn wrote two scenarios
about Russia in her spare time,

Red Pawn and Treason.

In 1932, Red Pawn, a story
about the evil of dictatorship,

was bought by Universal
for the sum of $1,500.

Eventually, Red Pawn was
traded to Paramount

as a vehicle
for Marlene Dietrich,

but not wanting to do
another story set in Russia,

Dietrich's director,
Joseph von Sternberg,

decided against the project,
and the film was never made.

It was her first sale, and
it really established herself

as a professional writer.

Now, some years later,

she sent a copy of Red Pawn
to Cecil B. DeMille,

and she said,
"l have always hoped

"that I would not drop
out of sight entirely,

"that the day would come when
I would be successful enough

"to show you that you had not
wasted the attention

"you have given me
at my start in Hollywood.

"I cannot say that I've
accomplished a great deal yet,

"but at least I am
a writer, and I feel

"that I can now thank you
from the bottom of my heart.

Sincerely, Ayn Rand."

And then, she put
in parentheses,

"Caviar, if you remember."

The sale of Red Pawn enabled Ayn

to quit her job at RKO
and write full-time.

She was finally free to finish
her first novel, We The Living.

While working on the novel,
she happened to see a play

called The Trial of Mary Dugan,
which took place in a courtroom.

She had also read
newspaper articles

on the Swedish match king
Ivar Kreuger

who had committed suicide

and whose financial empire
had fallen.

She was interested in the fact
that he was being denounced,

not for his dishonesty
and fraud,

but for the fact
that he had been successful.

She devised a play
that centered on the trial

of a woman accused of murdering
an infamous industrialist,

titled Penthouse Legend.

She created an unprecedented
dramatic device,

which required members
of the audience

to be selected
for each performance

to serve on the jury.

She conceived the play
with two endings,

one for a verdict of not guilty,
and one for guilty.

She thought that the jury
gimmick would be best

if she had done it
in conjunction

with some hotly controversial
issue, like trial marriages,

or abortion, or whatever,
but she couldn't

write about an issue
of that narrow a scope,

so she had to combine it
with a sense of life concern,

and therefore it's the jury
making their final decision

on balanced evidence, according
to their sense of life.

"if this play's sense
of life were to be verbalized,"

she later wrote,
"it would say, in effect,

"your life, your achievement,
your happiness,

"your person are
of paramount importance.

"Live up to your highest vision
of yourself, no matter what

"the circumstances
you might encounter.

"An exalted view
of self-esteem

is man's most admirable
quality."

Rejected by many producers
who feared the gimmick

would destroy
the theatrical illusion,

E.E. Clive, a character actor
who ran the Hollywood Playhouse,

finally produced
Penthouse Legend.

Opening as Woman on Trial
in the spring of 1934,

it starred Barbara Bedford,
a silent film actress,

as Karen Andre.

Although Clive was
a good director

and the play got
rave reviews,

hearing her words
uttered by actors

who didn't understand
their meaning

was a profound disappointment
to Ayn.

It was only the spectacle
of her name on the marquee

for the first time
that thrilled her.

Her sister Nora's image
of success in America

had now become
a reality for Ayn.

After the run in Hollywood,

producer AI Woods
optioned the play for Broadway

under the title
Night of Januaw 16th.

Meanwhile, Frank had been
acting steadily,

appearing in such films
as Cimarron

and Three On a Match.

But it was a variety
of comedic roles

that were to kill his ambition
to work as an actor.

Romantic roles that suited him
were not to be found.

He began to consider
another career

while Ayn continued
to write.

A year later,
Night of January 16th

when into rehearsals,

and Ayn was thrust
into a torturous process

of constantly protecting
her script from changes.

When the play opened
on Broadway in September, 1935,

she was emotionally spent.

Not able to watch
what the play had become,

she sat in the back row
and yawned.

Despite the mixed reviews,

it was a moderately
successful show

that paid her royalties
of up to $1,200 a week.

The show ran for seven months,
and night after night,

celebrities such as Jack Dempsey
and Helen Keller

sat in the jury box.

The stars, Doris Nolan
and Walter Pidgeon,

fared well
as the lead characters.

Ayn had suggested Pidgeon
for the role

of gangster "Guts" Reagan,
and it ultimately led

to an MGM movie contract
for him.

But in spite of the play's
eventual popularity,

Ayn was never to forget
watching

the integrity of her script
destroyed.

However, she was now
ready to focus

entirely on the work she had
complete control over,

the final chapters
of We The Living.

"We The Living is not a novel
about Soviet Russia.

It is a novel
about man against the state,"

Ayn wrote.

"Its basic theme
is the sanctity of human life.

"it is a story
of a dictatorship--

"any dictatorship,
anywhere, at any time,

"whether it be Soviet Russia,
Nazi Germany,

or a socialist America."

The heroine of the story,
Kira Argounova,

wants to be an engineer.

An aluminum
suspension bridge

is the shimmering spectacle
of achievement she aspires to.

An individualist, caught
in the same revolutionary Russia

that Ayn Rand had survived,
Kira asks, "Don't you know

"that there are things
in the best of us

"which no outside hand
should dare to touch--

"things sacred because--
and only because--

"one can say,
'this is mine"?

"Don't you know that there is
something in us

"which must not be touched
by any state, any collective--

by any number of millions'?"

In a foreword to the novel
in 1958,

Ayn wrote that, "We The Living
is as near to an autobiography

"as I will ever write.

"It is not an autobiography
in the literal,

"but only
in the intellectual sense.

The plot is invented.
The background is not."

Although Ayn was pleased
with her characterizations

in We The Living,

she felt she hadn't yet
fully achieved

her style
in the English language.

She knew that was to come
with practice.

But when the manuscript
was submitted by her agent,

Ann Watkins,
it was the fact

that the story depicted
the reality of Soviet Russia,

a reality American intellectuals
refused to believe,

that resulted
in it being rejected

by one publisher
after another.

By 1936, with the New Deal
in full swing,

We The Living was finally
sold to Macmillan.

IVlacmillan's editors
had been divided

on whether to buy the book
due to its anti-Soviet theme.

When it was published,
the company was not

totally behind it,
placing only two ads.

Reviews claimed the author
simply didn't understand

the great Soviet
experiment.

Despite this, the novel was
slowly building an audience.

"I wrote the book feeling
that I was, in some measure,

"in the only manner
possible to me,

"repaying my adopted country
for the freedom

and the opportunity
it has given me,"

Ayn wrote at the time.

"How much good the book
will accomplish,

"I cannot say,
and it is not up to me,

"but if it can make
a few people pause

"and doubt the glories
of communism,

I shall feel satisfied."

At this time, producer
Jerome Mayer approached Ayn

to adapt We The Living
for the stage.

She did not think We The Living

was suitable to be performed
as a play on Broadway.

There was a tremendous amount
of opposition

from Hollywood stars
who would profess to her--

Bette Davis is
one example--

that they would be honored
to do the part,

they would love
to do Kira,

and suddenly, two weeks
or two months later,

they would say, "I'm sorry.

My agent tells me that it will
destroy my career,"

because it was Hollwvood
in the '30s.

It was the Red Decade,
and to appear on the stage

in an anti-Communist play
in that stage

would--meant to be
boycotted entirely

by the leftists who
owned Hollywood.

Renamed The Unconquered,

the renowned producer/director
George Abbott

eventually
took on the project,

and the play
went into production.

Abbott was mainly
a comedy director,

and tried to mold the characters
into the "folks next door."

He constantly asked Ayn
to change

her austerely romantic dialogue
to naturalistic approximations.

Arguing with Abbott
thoroughly disgusted her,

and by the time
the play opened,

she had lost all interest
in the production.

The reviews were
uniformly bad,

and the play lasted
only five performances.

This was to be Ayn's
last theatrical venture,

and it closed an unfulfilling
but illuminating chapter

in her career.
As a writer,

she had witnessed
what could happen to her words

at the hands of others.

A few years later,

Ayn met the Italian actress
Alida Valli in Hollywood.

Valli told Ayn that she
had been instrumental

in getting the film version
of We The Living

made in Italy in 1942.

Without Ayn's knowledge,

the film had been released
and was very successful,

but it wasn't long
before Mussolini's government

realized the story was
an indictment

of not only communism,
but fascism as well.

The film was pulled
and placed in a vault.

It was finally uncovered
in the 19605,

and restored
with Ayn's approval.

In the Hollywood of the 1940s,

Valli tried to persuade
David O. Selznick

to remake We The Living,

but the Red Decade had a
stronghold on American culture,

and Ayn's plea
to alert the world

about the horrors
of communism went unheard.

She had underestimated
the influence of altruism

on American intellectuals.

You don't like altruists.

I disapprove of them.
I regard them as evil.

Okay, but what's--so what's bad
about the person

who wants to help
other people?

Well, to begin with,
that's the big mistake.

People can want
to help other people

properly and
with very good reasons,

but that isn't altruism.

Altruism doesn't mean
merely helping people.

It means sacrificing
yourself for others,

placing the interests
of others above your own.

It's the self-sacrificing person
who is an altruist.

And what's wrong
with that?

What's wrong with committing
suicide?

What's wrong
with giving up life?

And why is the happiness
of another person

important and good
but not your own?

To sacrifice
for your loved one

is, in many cases then,
a misnomer.

If you love your husband
or wife,

and you have to,
let us say,

select between spending money
for your spouse if he's ill

or going to a nightclub,

it's not a sacrifice
to spend money for your spouse

if he or she
is your value.

That is what
you want to do.

I SSG.

But if you let,
for instance,

your husband die
in order to save

the neighbor's husband
or your wife,

that would be altruism.

I'm still not quite sure
why you're so harsh

on those who would sacrifice
for other people.

They don't hesitate
to sacrifice whole nations.

Look at Russia.

Communism is based
on altruism.

Look at Nazi Germany.

The Nazis were
more explicit

than even the Russians
in preaching

self-sacrifice
and altruism,

and self-sacrifice
for the state,

for the folk--
the people.

Every dictatorship is
based on altruism.

Now, you can't fight it

by merely saying
it's a difference of opinion.

It's a difference
of life and death.

it's the founding
fathers who established

in the United States
of America

the first and only free society
in history,

and the economic system
which was the corollary

of the American
political system,

was capitalism, the system
of total, unregulated,

Iaissez-faire capitalism.

This was the basic principle
of the American way of life

or the American
political system.

However, in practice,
it has never yet been practiced.

A total separation
of government and economics

had not been established
from the first.

It was implied
in principle,

but certain loopholes
or contradictions

were still allowed
into the American setup

and into the American
Constitution,

which permitted
collectivist influences

to undermine the American way
of life, and today,

it is practically
collapsing.

Only, I want to make
something clear.

I'm not a conservative.

I think
that today's conservatives

are worse
than today's liberals.

I think they are--

if anyone destroys
this country,

it will be
the conservatives,

because they do not know
how to preach capitalism,

to explain it
to the people--

because they do nothing
except apologize,

and because
they're all altruists.

They are all based
on religious altruism,

and on that combination
of ideas,

you cannot
save this country.

In spite of
the pro-Soviet sentiment

that surrounded the early
history of We The Living,

Ayn Rand had told America
about the Soviet cemetery.

It was also
against this backdrop

that she had been trying
desperately to get her family

out of Russia.

Beginning
shortly after Ayn Rand

came to the United States
in early 1926,

her family began
making plans

to come to the United States
themselves--to emigrate.

Not just to visit,
but actually to emigrate.

And they first tried to get
Nora, her youngest sister,

to come here, and then

they began making plans
for all of them to come here.

They were learning English.

They said in their letters

that they were speaking
English at home,

trying to get
more used to the language.

Ayn Rand herself began
in the early '30s

the process of bringing
her family here,

after she became a citizen
and was steadily employed,

which was very important.

She began making contact
with U.S. government officials

and the immigration office
and the like.

Unfortunately,
under Stalin,

it became virtually impossible
for people to get out of Russia,

so they were put
in jeopardy

just by corresponding
with people in the West,

so her family stopped writing
to her--they had to,

and simultaneously,
she stopped writing to them.

At that time,
the U.S. government

was putting up notices
in the post offices

telling people they can endanger
their families and friends

just by sending them
letters in Russia.

The way I came across the file
about her parents,

I could tell that it meant
a lot to her,

that she tried
to get them.

She wanted very much to bring
them over and save them,

because they both had
medical problems

that couldn't be taken care of
in Russia.

I think it must've been
very crushing for her

to have lost them
like that.

In 1937, Ayn and Frank
were spending a summer in Connecticut

while Frank appeared in a stock
version of Night of January 16th

at the Stony Creek Theater.

In an intense struggle
to work on her next novel,

The Fountainhead,

Ayn used the solitude
of the Country to write.

Literally tearing her hair out
over the plot,

she took a break to complete
a novelette called Anthem.

Originally a play
she conceived in Russia,

Anthem was a futuristic account
of a world

where individualism
had been obliterated,

and the word "l" had been
replaced with the word "we."

It was her hymn to man's ego,
to man's absolute self,

and an account
of what she believed

were the true implications
of all forms of collectivism.

Written in the form
of a diaw,

the story culminates
with the protagonist

rediscovering the concept
of individualism.

"At first, man was
enslaved by the gods,

"but he broke their chains.

"Then, he was enslaved
by the kings.

"But he broke their chains.

"He was enslaved by his birth,

"by his kin,

"by his race.

"But he broke their chains.

"He declared
to all his brothers

"that a man has rights
which neither God,

"nor king, nor other men
can take away from him,

"no matter what their number,

"for his is
the right of man,

and there is no right
on earth above this right."

Ever since she first saw
the image of an American city

in a Russian movie theater
at age 16,

Ayn Rand wanted
to write a story

that would glorify
the skyscraper

as a symbol of achievement
and of life on earth.

Finally understanding
American life,

and fully an adult, she was
ready to create her ideal man.

Now, a question puzzled her.

She had known
an ambitious secretary at RKO

who was real
Hollywood climber.

She, like Ayn,
took her career very seriously,

but Ayn disliked
everything about her,

and one day asked her
what she wanted to achieve.

The girl told her,
"Here's what I want out of life.

"if nobody had an automobile,
I would not want one.

"if automobiles exist
and some people don't have them,

"l want an automobile.

"If some people
have two automobiles,

I want two automobiles."

It was a shock to Ayn
that a person

would base their goals in life
on other people's standards.

As if in a flash,

two opposing characters
of her next novel were formed,

Howard Roark,
the individualistic architect,

and Peter Keating,
the conventional second-hander

of The Fountainhead
were born.

I could not understand whether
the hero of The Fountainhead

Howard Roark, was an idealist
or was practical.

My father had always
brought me up to believe that

you have two choices in life,
idealism or practicality,

and that you cannot be both,

and I could not classify
Roark as either,

because obviously,
he was an idealist.

He wouldn't compromise.

He was a man
of iron integrity,

and yet, at the same time,
it was shown

by the logic of the events
that he was the one

that would make a practical
success of his career,

whereas his opponent,
like Keating and Toohey,

are doomed to fail.

And I read The Fountainhead,
and it hit me

like a ton of bricks,
because I found out

what it meant to be
an individualist,

and in the character
of Howard Roark,

there he was, not explained
as in a philosophic treatise,

but dramatized,
and concretized,

so that's the--kind of
the glory of Ayn Rand's fiction.

You can see
what the philosophy means.

You can see a character and
that this is what it means

to act on a philosophy.

For the heroine of the novel,

Ayn created Dominique,

the aristocratic woman
who first fights against Roark,

but then stands by him
in the end.

She described Dominique
as herself in a bad mood.

It was an emotional state
that never lasted

for more
than a full day for Ayn,

but one that the character
of Dominique

takes years to overcome.

To research The Fountainhead,
Ayn took a job as a typist

for the architect
Ely Jacques Kahn, in New York.

Through this experience,
she came to admire

the work
of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Although she did not use
Wright as a model

for her hero, Howard Floark,

it was the originality
and daring of Wright's designs

that she wanted to capture.

In 1937, she first
wrote to Frank Lloyd Wright

trying to get a meeting with him
to talk about the book

and explain to him
what she was going to do

and to get an interview
with him,

and she was unsuccessful,
Wright was uninterested.

She tried a couple of times
and got nowhere,

but Wright eventually
read The Fountainhead,

and I think it was about a year
after the book was published,

wrote her a letter
which began,

"Your thesis is
the great one."

Ayn Rand stated that
the theme of The Fountainhead

is the issue of collectivism
versus individualism,

not in politics,
but in man's soul.

Rejected a total
of 12 times

by publishers who claimed
the book would never sell,

she refused to change
one word of her manuscript.

She now faced the same dilemma
as her own hero

in The Fountainhead.

In a key moment
of the novel,

a prospective client
demands

that Howard Roark place
a classic portico

on his brilliantly original
design for a modern bank.

Roark refuses,
explaining

that an honest building,
like an honest man,

has to be of one piece
and one faith,

and that the good, the high,
and the noble on earth

is only that which
keeps its integrity.

It was the integrity
of one man at Bobbs-Merrill,

Archibald Ogden,

that finally got
The Fountainhead published.

Told by the head of the company
to reject the book,

Ogden, a new editor at the time,
wrote them a note.

"if this isn't
the book for you,

then I'm not
the editor for you."

Ayn signed a contract
with Bobbs-Merrill,

and The Fountainhead appeared
in bookstores in 1943.

At first,
to Ayn's dismay,

the ad campaign
never mentioned the issue

of individualism
versus collectivism.

It focused on the love affair
between Dominique and Roark.

Sales of the book started up
very slowly, but by 1945,

it had reached bestseller list
through word-of-mouth,

selling 100,000 copies
in one year.

As The Fountainhead's
sales rose,

Ayn was still back in New York,
reading scripts for Paramount,

while Frank struggled
in the theater.

Across the continent,
Barbara Stanwyck,

who was under contract
to Warner Bros.,

brought The Fountainhead
to the attention

of producer Henry Blanke.

Soon, Warner Bros. had bought
the movie rights for $50,000,

with Stanwyck slated
to play Dominique.

Blanke believed that Ayn should
adapt the book for the screen,

and she was hired
to write the screenplay.

In 1943, Ayn Fland
moved back to Hollywood

to write The Fountainhead
movie script.

She wrote to Archie Ogden,

her much beloved
Fountainhead editor,

"As to the working Conditions
of a Hollywood writer's life,

"they are exactly as
one would imagine

"a Hollywood writer's life,
with all the trimmings.

"I have an office
the size of a living room

"with another office outside
and a secretary in it.

"Nobody can come in
without being announced

"by my secretary,
and she answers the phone.

"The grandeur and the glamour
and the pomp

"and the circumstance
are simply wonderful.

"Of course I love it,
for the moment,

"but I won't exchange it
for the pleasure of writing

as I please.
I haven't gone Hollywood yet."

Arriving in Hollywood,

Ayn and Frank moved
into a furnished apartment

that didn't allow pets.

After their beloved cat
was discovered by the landlady,

they decided to buy
a house.

Although hesitant of living
so far from Hollywood,

they found a boldly modern

designed by Richard Neutra
in Chatsworth, California.

Now, there was plenty of room
for Ayn to write

and for Frank to grow
flowers and vegetables,

which he turned
into a commercial enterprise.

They were also able
to raise peacocks

and house
a few more cats.

World War ll rationing
of building materials

forced The Fountainhead movie
to be put on hold

due to the demands
of the film's sets.

Fortunately, Ayn had met
producer Hal Wallis

on the Warmers lot,

and he hired her
to rewrite the love scenes

in a troubled film
called The Conspirators.

She adapted two other scripts
for Wallis.

One was Love Letters,

which was directed
by William Dieterle,

and earned Jennifer Jones
an Oscar nomination in 1945.

The other was the popular
You Came Along,

starring Bob Cummings
and Lizabeth Scott.

Three years into her contract
with Hal Wallis,

she was asked to write a script
about the making

of the atom bomb,
called Top Secret.

After completing a large portion
of the script,

Hal Wallis sold the project
out from under her to MGM.

For Ayn, it was the end
of her contract with Hal Wallis,

and the beginning of another
battle to combat collectivism.

Ayn had been
consistently disillusioned

with American politics.

In 1940,
while volunteering

on behalf of the Wendell Willkie
presidential campaign,

she saw many conservatives
betray the principles

of individualism
and capitalism.

In an effort
to counteract the New Deal,

she stood on the stage
at the Gloria Swanson Theater

in New York,
through seven shows a day,

answering questions
from the audience

about the evils
of collectivism.

She was also voted
onto the board

of the Motion Picture Alliance

for the Preservation
of American Ideals,

better known as the MPA.

A conservative group
formed at MGM by Louis B. Mayer,

it included
such Hollywood professionals

as Walt Disney, Hedda Hopper,
Gary Cooper, John Wayne,

and Lela Rogers,
Ginger's mother.

Ayn was the only member
to write signed articles

concerning communist propaganda
in the movies.

Not intended as
a government imposed regulation,

her pamphlet, entitled
Screen Guide for Americans,

was a voluntary guide
for filmmakers

to monitor communist propaganda
in their movies.

Displeased with the MPA's fear
that her ideas

in the Screen Guide
were too harsh,

she resigned from the board.

In 1947,
after the House Committee

on Un-American Activities
had read the guide,

she was asked to testify
as a friendly witness.

Along with Robert Taylor,
Adolphe Menjou, and Gary Cooper,

she appeared at the hearings
in Washington to investigate

communist infiltration
in the movies.

Considering the endeavor
a dubious undertaking,

she agreed
upon one condition--

that there would be no
restrictions on her testimony.

Although she was
to analyze two films,

she was ultimately only allowed
to speak on one,

Song of Russia,

an absurdly inaccurate
glamorization of Russia

she felt was not even
worthy of scrutiny.

However, she wanted
to set the record straight

about life
in the Soviet Union.

Don't they do things
at all like Americans?

Don't they walk
across town

to visit their mother-in-law
or somebody?

Look, it's really
hard to explain.

It's almost impossible
to convey to a free people

what it's like to live
in a totalitarian dictatorship.

I could tell you
a lot of details.

I can never completely
convince you,

because you are free,

and it's in a way good
that you don't

can't even conceive
of what it's like.

Certainly, they have friends
and mothers-in-law.

They try to lead
a human life,

but you understand
that it is totally inhuman.

Now, try to imagine
what it's like

if you are in constant terror
from morning to night,

and at night you are waiting
for a doorbell to ring.

If you are afraid
of everything and everybody,

if you live in a country
where human life is nothing--

less than nothing,
and you know it.

You don't know who, when,
is going to do what to you,

because you may have
friends somewhere.

But there is no law,
and no rights of any kind.

Concerned with
the flood of bad press,

the committee was not interested
in the cold, hard facts

about life
under communism.

Although Ayn didn't approve
of the hearings,

calling them futile,
she believed her testimony

could have been an effective way
to make clear

what she saw as propaganda
on the screen.

She tried to do what she had
done in We The Living,

but still,
no one wanted to listen.

Subsequently, however,

her Screen Guide was reprinted
in many newspapers,

including The New York Times
drama section,

and the studios began to order
copies of it for distribution.

Also, The Fountainhead sales
were picking up.

Many were beginning to hear
what Ayn Rand had to say.

Following the war,
in 1948,

Gary Cooper's wife
had read The Fountainhead

and suggested he read it.

Afterwards,
Cooper went to Warner Brothers

and signed
a two-picture-per-year deal

on the condition they
give him The Fountainhead.

During the years
the film was on hold,

the book had been rising
in sales and popularity.

Many stars were now interested
in playing parts in the film.

Clark Gable canceled
his MGM contract

when he discovered
that failed to buy the book

as a vehicle for him.

For the role of Roark,
Humphrey Bogart and Alan Ladd

were considered, as well
as Clifton Webb and Orson Welles

for Roark's nemesis,
Ellsworth Toohey.

King Vidor was signed on
to direct.

Vidor, a maverick
of all early filmmaking,

had done such notable films
as The Big Parade and The Crowd.

Since Ayn had previously met
with Barbara Stanwyck

and wanted her to the part
of Dominique,

she called Stanwyck
and informed her

the film was
starting up again.

Having worked with Stanwyck
on Stella Dallas,

Vidor thought she was
too old

and not the right type
for Dominique.

He didn't think
she could play a lady.

He had wanted Gene Tierney
or Jennifer Jones,

with whom he had just worked
on Duel In The Sun.

Although Ayn had no control
over the casting of the picture,

Joan Crawford hosted a dinner
in Ayn's honor

to garner the role.

Attempting to imitate
Dominique's character,

Crawford wore
a white Adrian evening gown

smothered
with aquamarine jewelry.

Veronica Lake told people that
Ayn had written part for her

because she had
Dominique's hairstyle.

At last, realizing
that Stanwyck was out,

Ayn suggested Greta Garbo.

While initially interested,

Garbo met with Vidor and decided
against taking the role.

Then, suddenly,
Bette Davis,

Warner's top star,
wanted the part.

Davis had gained a reputation
for holding up sets,

changing scripts, and arguing
with her leading men.

Vidor and Blanke
were against hiring her,

and Ayn threatened to walk
off the picture if they did.

However, Patricia Neal was
under contract as a new starlet,

and the studio decided
to give a relative unknown

the coveted role.

The studio had now
officially turned its back

on Barbara Stanwyck.

When Ayn realized that
no one had the courage

to phone Stanwyok,
she phoned her personally

to let her know
the part had been given away.

Stanwyck immediately
fired oft a bitter telegram

to Jack Warner,
and abruptly ended her contract.

Finally, after Ayn had met
Frank Lloyd Wright,

she commissioned him
to design a country home

for her and Frank.

Although the home
was never built,

she was pleased that Blanke
and Vidor wanted Wright

to design Roark's buildings
for The Fountainhead.

When Wright demanded $250,000
and final approval

over the script, casting,
costumes, and sets,

Blanke and Vidor
decided against it.

Ayn then recommended
Kahn and Neutra,

but the studio set designer,
Edward Carrere,

ended up with the job.

Knowing that the art department
was creating

structurally unsound designs
for F{oark's buildings,

Ayn suggested Vidor
never hold too long on them.

She knew architects
would criticize the film

on this count.

Now, with the cast and crew
firmly in place,

the film went
into production.

She wrote to her old editor,
Archie Ogden,

about the beginning
of the shooting,

and she said to him,

"The Fountainhead movie
goes into production on Monday.

"In fact, the company is leaving
today to go on location.

"The first scene shot
will be the quarry.

"They are going to shoot it
in a local quarry, near Fresno.

"I've seen pictures
of the place,

"and it is quite impressive.

"Funny, isn't it?
I remember the time

"when that quarry was nothing
but my imagination,

"and now, it is going to be made
into a physical reality.

"l do feel somewhat
in the position of a god,

"since something which I made
out of spirit

is now going to be translated
into matter."

In working on
the script with Vidor,

Ayn became engaged
in another series of battles

to keep her words intact.

Neither the studio
nor the censors knew

what to make
of The Fountainhead,

and they were ideologically
intimidated by its author.

The love scenes
between Roark and Dominique,

which spilled over
into the personal lives

of Cooper and Neal,
were not as much of a concern

as Roark's climactic
courtroom speech.

The speech was to be
Roark's sole defense

for dynamiting
a housing project

he had designed that was altered
without his consent.

Gary Cooper's lawyer
and the Johnston office censors

were concerned about
the uncompromising principles

of Roark's individualism.

Neither were able
to justify their objections,

and their questions
only prompted Ayn

to lengthen the speech
for clarity.

Increased from 41/2
to 61/2 minutes,

Cooper would now deliver
thelongestspeech

in the history of film.

Although Cooper was serious
and worked very hard,

he had trouble understanding
and delivering the speech.

Vidor asked Ayn
to coach Cooper,

but eventually decided
to shoot a cut version

of the scripted speech
without Ayn's knowledge.

On the day the speech was shot,
Ayn happened to be on the set,

and discovered Vidor
was shooting

a shorter version
of the speech.

Fudous,
she threatened Blanke

that she would disassociate
herself from the picture

if the speech
was not shot as written.

Blanke returned to the set
with an edict from Jack Warner.

There were to be no changes
to the script on the set.

It was truly unprecedented.

The speech and her script
were filmed

without one single word
being changed.

Look at history.
Everything we have,

every great achievement
has come

from the independent work
of some independent mind.

I came here to say
that I do not recognize

anyone's right
to one minute of my life,

nor to any part
of my energy,

nor to any achievement of mine,
no matter who makes the claim.

It had to be said.
The world is perishing

from an orgy
of self-sacrificing.

I came here to be heard
in the name

of every man of independence
still left in the world.

I wanted to state
my terms.

I do not care to work
or live on any others.

My terms are a man's right
to exist for his own sake.

She was proud of the script.
She thought it was

good and honest
within the framework

of their abilities, that they
didn't sabotage the novel,

but it wasn't what she would
consider a work of art.

Ayn was disappointed
that the film lacked

the romanticism
she so loved

in the German films
she had seen in her youth.

But the film was a windfall
as advertising for the book.

By 1961, the hardcover edition
of The Fountainhead

soared
past 500,000 copies.

To this day, The Fountainhead
sells 100,000 copies annually.

For a book that publishers
claimed would never sell,

Ayn Rand's first story,
projecting her ideal man,

was an undeniable success.

Late in 1950,

Ayn Rand received
a fan letter

from a young psychology student,
Nathaniel Branden.

She thought his letter
was so intelligent

and his questions so astute
that she invited him

to call on her in person
to discuss them further.

Both Ayn and Frank were
completely won over by him

after their first meeting,

and Nathaniel began
seeing them more frequently.

By 1953, Ayn and Frank
stood up at Nathaniel's wedding,

and in the years that followed,
the Brandens and the O'Connors

formed an intimate circle.

Nathaniel Branden
meant a great deal to Ayn Rand.

She thought he was a genius
of exceptional intelligence,

that he would be an innovator
in the field of psychology,

that he took ideas
with passion and seriousness,

and she obviously
liked him,

and by all the evidence
that I have,

she had an affair with him,
which she would not do

if she didn't have the highest
possible opinion of him.

This she did, of course,
with the knowledge

of her husband and the consent
of her husband.

I don't have any really inside
information of how Frank coped

with the knowledge
of the affair.

I presume there had to be
some jealousy,

but he was not
characteristically

a jealous person,
and I think he felt--

now, I'm taking
my educated guess here.

I think he felt,
in some way,

that she was
uniquely special,

and that she needed more
from a man that he could offer.

And as I see it
in my own mind,

Frank had the soul
that Ayn Rand needed,

but he didn't have
the intellect.

He didn't have that glowing,
brilliant

intellectual's type of intellect
which Branden seemed to have.

It's true that she had
great needs

because of her personality.

She needed both
a soul mate

and a certain sense of life
in a man,

but she also needed
somebody

she could talk
as an intellectual to.

Nathaniel Branden created

an institute
to teach a lecture series

based on Ayn Rand's
philosophy.

Ayn endorsed his courses

and the articles
he wrote on psychology

that appeared
in magazines and books.

Eventually, however,
she was to discover

that he was involved
in a series

of personal
and professional deoeptions.

In my opinion,

Nathaniel Branden was
the supreme actor,

who communicated that nothing
mattered more to him than ideas,

and he wanted nothing
from the world but the truth,

and the revolution of the truth
is all that counted.

He was an idealist,
and so on,

and that was what he presented
himself as originally.

He was very intelligent.

It wasn't the case of a dolt
who was able to put it over.

He was actually
very intelligent,

but in the course
of his life, his values

obviously came to change
for whatever reason--

because of his pre-existing
psychology or whatever.

He had to act an increasingly
onerous part

to retain Ayn's affection,
namely, to pretend something

that he knew he was not
and no longer wanted to be.

And finally, it just--
it became intolerable,

and one thing or another
precipitated the break.

She bore it,
but she finally did

get over it and go on
with her life of writing

and--with her husband.

As Ayn's writing continued,

Frank O'Connor had been steadily
trying to find his niche.

Glowing with admiration,
he enjoyed watching his wife,

but never tried
to manage her career.

He was an independent entity,

gracefully, quietly searching
for his life's work.

Frank was an amazing man.

First of all, he looked
totally like an Ayn Rand hero.

He stood out in any crowd.

He was, in my view,
the Howard Roark type.

My impression of
Frank from the beginning was

that he was a very fine,
very sensitive artist type.

He was not dominantly
the talker, but you felt

that he was a very strong and
sensitive presence with her,

and then, in later years,
he looked for the career

that would give him
full satisfaction

for many years, and finally,
the logic of his choices

took him into painting,
and that's where

he really found himself and
began to do tremendous work.

What he did always had
the Frank O'Connor touch to it

that she would describe
as, "Like laughter

let loose
in the universe."

Our founding fathers talked
about the right

of the pursuit
of happiness.

Do you think this is
really important?

I don't know what else
could be any more important.

If you attach that meaning
to concepts--

The pursuit of happiness
means

a man's right
to set his own goals,

to choose his values,
and to achieve them.

Happiness means that state
of consciousness

which comes from the achievement
of your values.

Now, what can be more important
than happiness?

But happiness does not mean
simply momentary pleasures

or any kind of mindless
self-indulgence.

Happiness means a profound,
guiltless, rational feeling

of self-esteem and of pride
in one's own achievement.

It means the enjoyment
of life,

which is possible
only to a rational man

on a rational code
of morality.

Because to make a success
of yourself

in any line of rational activity
is a great virtue.

And they--people will
attack you

for exercising your ability,
for hard work,

for consistency,
for ambition,

and they will want to make you
feel guilty of it.

In fact, people who preach that
are the ones who are mawkish

about the evil people,
the affairs,

the liars, the cheats--
everybody who is weak

suddenly acquires
some kind of value.

But anyone who is
a success

has to be attacked
for his success.

And look at how you have
been attacked...

- Oh, I know.
- how you have been criticized.

- There are many--
- You know that?

There are many people
in this country--

forgive me--in this world
who think you're daft.

They don't.

They want you
to think that.

During The
Fountainhead's rise to the top,

Ayn and Frank had been happy
at the Chatsworth Ranch.

But Ayn had grown
weary of the country

and living in California.
She missed New York.

"l hate Hollywood as a place,
just as I did before.

"it's overcrowded,
vulgar, cheap, and sad

"in a hopeless sort of way.

"The people on the streets
are all tense, eager,

"and suspicious,
and look unhappy--

"The has-beens
and the would-bes.

"I'm in love with New York.

"Frank says that what I love
is not the real city

"but the New York
I built myself.

That's true."

New York represented to her

the pinnacle
of human achievement

in physical terms.

Aristotle would be the pinnacle
of achievement intellectually.

But New York,
the skyscrapers,

everything that man
had traversed

from the time of the cave
to the time of this glorious

and industrial
civilization,

that was, to her,
what life was about.

It wasn't just acquiring
philosophy.

It was acquiring ideas,
acquiring science,

and then remaking the earth
accordingly,

and she couldn't think
of a more splendid

and exciting and beautiful place
than that view that you get

of the skyscrapers
where you don't see

the details of each one
but the mass of human ingenuity

and talent soaring
for the sky.

Ayn took a studio
in New York

in a very seedy, old hotel
on 31st Street,

and Ayn came to pose
for me there.

There were no windows
in the studio,

but there was a skylight,

and the only thing one could see
from the skylight

was the top
of the Empire State Building,

and Ayn was particularly
smitten with that.

I subsequently moved
to Greenwich Village,

and she came down there
to pose as well,

and the atmosphere
was a little different.

I think she wasn't quite
as happy in that studio

as she was being able to see
the Empire State Building

while she posed.

In 1951, Ayn and
Frank moved to New York City,

the city she had first seen
as a backdrop of electric lights

in a Russian theater.

Now, as a successful
American writer,

she would live in one
of that city's skyscrapers,

and here, she would complete
her monumental book,

Atlas Shrugged.

When a friend insisted
Ayn write

a nonfiction treatise
on her philosophy

out of a duty to help people
understand her ideas,

she was indignant.

She thought, "Why should I?
What if I went on strike?

What of all the creative minds
of the world went on strike?"

Hence, the story
of men and women of the mind

who go on strike and
abandon the world was formed.

Wider in scope
than The Fountainhead,

Atlas Shrugged
dramatized

the whole
of Ayn Rand's philosophy,

allowing Ayn to express
her total sense of life--

a life she knew could
and should exist.

Likening the new heroes
in the book

to the giant Greek god

who supported the heavens
on his shoulders,

Ayn focused on three
captains of industry,

a copper magnate...

A steel mill owner...

And the head
of a railroad.

They were the creators,
innovators,

and independent thinkers
who moved the world

but decided to shrug.

She told a reporter
at the time

that the story would combine
metaphysics,

morality, politics,
economics, and sex.

And as she had promised
her professor in Russia,

the book would finally
make her ideas

a part of the history
of philosophy.

As the mystery story
of Atlas Shrugged unfolds,

Ayn Rand erects an unprecedented
argument for capitalism.

Presenting a moral defense
for man's right to exist

for his own sake, to pursue
the work of his choice,

and keep the rewards
of his labor,

she argued that
capitalism demands

the best of every man,
his rationality,

and rewards him
accordingly.

"it leaves every man free
to choose the work he likes,

"to specialize in it,

"to trade his product
for the products of others,

"and to go as far
on the road of achievement

"as his ability and ambition
will Carry him.

"Who is John Galt,"
was the burning question

that opened
Atlas Shrugged.

Although Frank posed
in publicity ads for the book,

Galt was a direct descendent
of Cyrus

in The Mysterious Valley.

Like Cyrus,
Galt was a hero

operating behind the scenes
for a good portion of the story.

The heroine,
Dagny Taggart,

the driving force behind Taggart
Transcontinental Railroad,

was Ayn's first depiction
of an ideal woman,

a character she called
"the feminine Roark."

Ayn herself read manuals
on railroad signal switching

and steel furnaces.

She visited the Kaiser
steel mills in California,

as well as other mills
in Chicago and Johnstown.

She researched
all the major railroads

and eventually
interviewed people

from the New York Central.

Bobbs-Merrill, the publisher
of The Fountainhead,

arranged a trip for her
on the 20th Century

to Albany
from New York City.

A particular thrill for her
was when the engineer

allowed her to drive
the train herself.

The demands of writing
the novel

took all of her energy
and focus.

She often worked
many hours at a time,

stopping only to eat
or cook a meal for Frank.

Often, she would lose
all track of time,

and they would end up
having supper

at 10:00 or 11 :00
at night.

When she was stuck
or had what she called

"the squirms,"
she would take a break

to play solitaire
or visit with friends.

Well, there was a group of us,
around 10 or 12,

who were related--either one
was a friend of another

or a relative of another,
and as a joke,

Ayn started to call us
"the Collective."

As a joke, because
we were supposed to be

all arch-individualists.

We came to her place
on a regular basis,

starting originally
on Saturday nights,

to read the manuscript
of Atlas Shrugged,

and then, we would read
whatever was available

or some given chapter,
and then, there would be

an all-around discussion
monitored by her,

and then she would
serve something

around midnight
or 1:00 in the morning.

Sometimes, we would stay till
3:00 or 4:00 in the morning.

And at first,
we got to know her best

through these weekly
Saturday night sessions.

Now her biggest challenge

was writing
Gait's climactic speech,

which he delivers
to a collapsing world

over radio airwaves.

Thinking it would take
roughly three months

to complete Gait's speech,

Ayn ultimately spent two years
perfecting it.

It encompassed
her entire philosophy,

which she later
called objectivism_

When she finished
the speech,

she submitted the book
to publishers.

With little bargaining,
she signed a contract

at Random House
for a $50,000 advance

to finish the book.

It was the fastest contract
she ever signed.

Ever since Atlas Shrugged
had been completed

in March, 1957,

Ayn felt as if she were basking
in the glow of her own sun.

Standing
back on the horizon,

she was happy to simply
contemplate her achievement.

But when her eyes
adjusted to the muted light

of the world around her,

she observed the current state
of the culture...

From the war in Vietnam
and student unrest,

to what she termed
the anti-Industrial Revolution.

She had been so full
of the sense of life

in her novels,
that the world of the 1960s

now seemed like the last days
of the Roman Empire.

Review after review
of Atlas Shrugged

viciously attempted
to discredit her and her work.

But however much the attacks
in the press hurt her,

they only stoked the fire

that would bring her
out into the public.

She did not
like public speaking.

She did not regard herself
as a teacher

by profession
or by interest.

She thought her accent was wrong
as far as public speaking,

and she'd never been able
to do much with her accent,

but she would be damned if she
was gonna let Atlas Shrugged

be commented on exclusively
by the critics who hated it.

She got invitations,
so she made up her mind that

despite all her reservations,
she was gonna speak

at least enough to give it
some publicity,

so she went reluctantly.

She faced, at first,
very antagonistic audiences.

They booed her,
they tried to out-yell her,

but of course,
she was immutable.

She was herself
on the lecture platform,

and I've seen audiences start
booing and end up cheering.

She had the ability
to deal with anything

that could come up
from an audience.

That was very impressive.

I can't tell you
what a contrast it made

to the sense of life
of the period.

We were just coming
out of the '50s.

The Leave It To Beaver,
Father Knows Best era,

when no one would take a stand
on anything,

when making a value judgment
was considered a sin,

but she was there,

making the most dramatic
and passionate statements,

saying everything was simple,
absolute, clear-cut.

She took time to find
out what you had on your mind,

and often time, in lectures
at Ford Hall Forum,

where there were hundreds
of people in the audience,

she would still
take her time.

She'd say, "Would you care
to repeat that?

"Would you care
to rephrase that

so I understand
what you're getting at?"

That's what
impressed me most.

She not only
answered the question,

She told you what errors
you made

that led you
to that question,

why you weren't able
to answer it yourself,

what confusions would arise
in your mind tomorrow

when you thought
over her answers,

and what the answers
to those were, and then,

what to read to consolidate
your thinking even more clearly.

So it was like
an entire course.

It wasn't just
yes or no answer.

Every question was
a springboard

to a total exploration
of the issue

and of the proper methods
of thinking.

When Ayn Rand appeared
annually at the Ford Hall Forum,

it attracted
a very large crowd.

She would go to her room
after she had given her talk.

People would line up--
very crowded, little room.

There weren't all
the books available

on her philosophical thoughts
to us, so needless to say,

we would build up
a huge inventory

of puzzling questions

since the last time
we met her,

and she would just field
questions until dawn,

at which time, she was
thoroughly relaxed

and she had come down
from the excitement of the talk,

and she would say
good-night to us,

and we would walk out
so revved up that,

in one case, I couldn't
go to sleep

for over two days after I had
left her hotel room.

I know many of you
have heard this line.

"Atlas Shrugged
changed my life.

The Fountainhead
changed my life."

Here's a woman who's read
by millions around the world.

She may be our most debated
philosopher.

She identifies
that to which she adheres

as objectivism.
We'll talk about it.

We care very much
about your sharing with us

your feelings about
this most interesting lady,

a warm human being
who has a lot to say

and comes straight
at everything she says.

I am pleased
to present Ayn Rand.

Ms. Rand.

The first show that
Ayn Rand appeared on

for us was
the Mike Wallace interview,

and for all I know,

it was certainly
one of the first shows

that she appeared
on in the '50s,

if not the very first show.
She was not very welcome.

She was a notorious figure

in New York
intellectual circles,

and it's hard now,
in the '90s,

to imagine the hostility
directed at her.

Saul Bellow once said
that New York at that time

was an intellectual annex
of Moscow,

and if it was that
for Saul Bellow,

you can imagine
what it was like for Ayn Rand.

The people I work with
simply wanted me

to do a piece
with Ayn Rand,

and I didn't know
a lot about her.

I had read
Fountainhead.

And I'm not certain--

I don't remember,
'cause I read it later

whether I had yet read
Atlas Shrugged,

and so I didn't meet her

until the night that she came
into the studio.

This is Mike Wallace
with another television portrait

from our gallery
of colorful people.

Throughout the United States,
small pockets of intellectuals

have become involved
in a new and unusual philosophy

which would seem to strike at
the very roots of our society.

The Fountainhead
of this philosophy

is a novelist, Ayn Rand,
whose two major works,

The Fountainhead
and Atlas Shrugged,

have been bestsellers.

We'll try to find out more
about her revolutionary creed

and about Ms. Rand herself
in just a moment.

Dark black, that Dutch cut,

those piercing,
Russian eyes--

strange looking person,
and the accent.

The first thing that struck you
when you met Ayn Rand

for the first time
were those eyes.

Big, black, glowing,
lustrous eyes,

which radiated
a tremendous energy

and penetration and focus
and intensity,

and they never left you,

and it was very unnerving,
at least to me at first.

You got used to it somewhat,
but at first, it was unnerving,

and perhaps even
a little intimidating.

And she would take
any question.

She was perfectly open,

and you could see the mind
at work and the spirit at work,

and she liked the joust
of tough questions

and direct answers.

My morality is based
on man's life

as a standard of value,

and since man's mind is
his basic means of survival,

I hold that if man
wants to live on earth

and to live
as a human being,

he has to hold reason
as an absolute,

by which I mean
that he has to hold reason

as his only guide
to action,

and that he must live
by the independent judgment

of his own mind,
that his highest moral purpose

is the achievement
of his own happiness,

and that he must not
force other people

nor accept their right
to force him,

that each man must live
as an end in himself,

and follow his own
rational self-interest.

She was obviously the most
unusual guest we ever had.

You just didn't get guests
who could speak for a half hour

about philosophy and ideas

clearly, penetratingly,
and excitingly,

and we would get
enormous mail.

I would afterwards get
into big arguments and fights

with my other friends
in the media.

"Why did you put her on?
How could you do such a thing?"

And it's very interesting.
These were documentarians

and writers and newspeople,
all of whom would argue

very vociferously
against Ayn Rand.

None of them had ever
read her works,

and to my knowledge,
none of them ever have,

as if they were afraid
somehow

of being stripped
of their illusions.

They'd rather cling to them.

In an outline for a new novel,

Ayn chose a dancer named Hella
as her heroine.

Hella wants to create
a new form of dance,

one that combines
the rhythmic precision of tap

with the graceful elegance
of ballet.

"The real essence of the story,"
Ayn wrote in notes to herself,

"is to be the universe
of my tiddlywink music,

of my sense of life."

But the state of the culture
made it impossible

for her to complete
another novel.

She was no longer able
to project her type of heroes

into the world
she was now living.

By 1961, she thought
that many Americans had given up

on finding solutions
to their problems.

They were cynical
and scared.

Despite this, she still believed
in their sense of life.

She was also convinced
that the young had not yet

been corrupted by her critics
or the intellectuals.

As Atlas Shrugged rose in sales
and on the best seller lists,

Ayn began to make more and more
television appearances,

from The Merv Griffin Show

to The Tonight Show
with Johnny Carson.

By 1963, Atlas Shrugged had sold
1 .2 million copies.

Do you consider yourself
primarily a novelist

or primarily a philosopher?

I would say I am primarily
both equally,

and for the same reasons.

You see, my main interest
and purpose,

both in literature
and in philosophy,

is to define and present
the image of an ideal man--

the specific, complete image
of what man can be

and ought to be,
and when I started writing,

when I approached
the task of literature

and began to study
philosophy,

I discovered that I was
in profound disagreement

with all the existing
philosophies,

particularly their codes
of morality.

Therefore, I had to do
my own thinking.

I had to define
my own philosophical system

in order to discover
and present

the kind of ideas
and premises

that make an ideal man
possible--

in order to define
what kind of convictions

would result in a character
of an ideal man.

Through conversations
with Leonard Peikoft,

Ayn saw that many
of her philosophic principles

were not self-evident
to those around her.

She realized
a more detailed elaboration

of her philosophy
was needed.

Now that Howard Roark,
John Galt,

and Dagny Taggart existed,
she had accomplished

what she had set out to do
in fiction,

and was ready to begin writing
in the field of philosophy.

She wanted to solve
what philosophers

traditionally called
the problem of universals.

She wanted to demonstrate
that abstract ideas

connect to reality,

that the concepts of freedom,
justice, and truth

were definable and real.

Leonard Peikoff
once put it to me this way,

in regard to the way
that she used ideas.

He said, "You know
the way you or I

"hold the concept, 'chair"?

"Well, that's the way
she holds

"the highest, deepest
philosophical abstraction--

with that same kind of clarity
and concreteness."

I think that's the secret
of her method,

that her ideas were always
derived from reality

for the purpose
of living in reality.

That's why they were
so urgently important to her.

They were not a game.

They were for the purpose
of living her life

and achieving her values.

I asked her once,
when I was much younger,

why she got
so emotionally upset

at the theories of philosophers
like Immanuel Kant,

and she said to me,
"Because when I hear

"a philosopher say
there is no reality

"and your mind is
totally invalid,

"that means all of your values
are nullified.

"Your husband, your love,
your work,

the music you like,
your freedom."

It was truly a life and death
matter to her.

She thought philosophy
moved to the world,

and if anybody has confusion
about a philosophic issue,

that could be a peril
to their soul,

their cognition,
their clarity.

She hears the total destruction
in the abstract statement.

IVlost people hear abstractions
as simply floating abstractions,

but for her, she translated it
into the actual, concrete things

that it meant, and what it
would mean her own life,

and she was able
to react emotionally

to broad abstractions,
which very few people can do.

When did you discover
or think up

or allow objectivism
to become your philosophy?

From the time
that I remember myself,

which is 21/2.

The first incident in my life
I can remember,

I was 21/2.

And from that time
on to the present,

lneverchanged
my convictions.

Only at 21/2, I didn't know
as much as I know now.

But the fundamental approach
was the same.

I've never had to change.

Why has it worked
for you?

Because it's true.

Because it corresponds
to reality.

Because it is
the right philosophy.

By true, I mean it corresponds
to reality, therefore,

it permits me to deal
with reality properly.

Throughout the '60s and '70s,

Ayn continued
to articulate her philosophy

through various interviews
and articles.

Without a border
to get beyond

or an artistic purpose
burning inside of her,

she now had a new reason
to work

and a new forum
to operate in.

Along with publishing books
on epistemology,

ethics,

social philosophy,

and aesthetics,

she also launched various
philosophical magazines.

She wanted to create
what she described

as a readers' digest for the man
of intellect and action,

and to her surprise,
she enjoyed the process.

She once wrote,

"Do you know that
my personal crusade in life,

"in the philosophical sense,

"is not merely
to fight collectivism,

"nor to fight altruism.

"These are only consequences,
effects, not causes.

"l am out after the real cause,
the real root of evil on earth--

the irrational."

In interviews and articles,

Ayn applied the essence
of her philosophy

to a variety of topics.

Upon the death
of Marilyn Monroe,

Ayn wrote that the beloved star
had projected the sense

of a person born and reared
in some radiant utopia,

untouched by suffering,

unable to conceive
ugliness or evil,

facing life
with confidence,

the benevolence,
and the joyous self-flaunting

of a child or a kitten

who is happy to display
its own attractiveness

as the best gift
it can offer the world.

To preserve that kind
of spirit on the screen,

the radiantly benevolent
sense of life

which cannot be faked,

was an almost inconceivable
psychological achievement

that required a heroism
of the highest order.

In her book,
The Virtue of Selfishness,

Ayn wrote that racism
is a doctrine

of, by, and for brutes.

"It is a barnyard or stock farm
version of collectivism,

"appropriate to a mentality

"that differentiates between
various breeds of animals

"but not between animals
and men.

"Like every form
of determinism,

"racism invalidates
the specific attribute

"which distinguishes man
from all other living species--

his rational faculty."

In 1969,

after Ayn and Frank were invited
to attend the launching

of Apollo 11,
she wrote,

"One knew that this spectacle

"was not the product
of an inanimate nature,

"like some aurora borealis,

"nor of chance,
nor of luck--

"that it was
unmistakably human,

with human, for once,
meaning 'grandeur."'

Religion, or the God concept,
or faith,

or worship has people--

has people thinking of life
as a veil of tears

through which you will probably
not get without falling.

- That's right.
- You are essentially

an evil person
who is bent toward--

Well, most religions
do preach just that.

You don't believe it?

God, no.

We are here, and we should
celebrate it,

use it, enjoy it,
be selfish.

There's a virtue
in selfishness...

Right.
Right.

And we got ourselves
in trouble when we started

using government to force us
to be good,

because we have this notion
that we had a--

a sort of bad nature.

Right.

And if we have
a bad nature,

we have no self-esteem.

If we have no self-esteem,
any demagogue can have us.

He can order us about,

because we wouldn't consider
ourselves valuable enough

to be free.

You will be anxious
to follow anyone,

because you don't
trust yourself.

The gulf between
Ayn Rand and the Soviet Union

had made it impossible
for her know

what had happened
to her family.

After permission to bring them
to America had been denied,

she had given up any hope
of ever seeing them again.

In 1973,
Ayn's youngest sister Nora

saw an article in Russia
about the now famous author,

Ayn Rand.

She wrote to Ayn,

and they began
a renewed correspondence.

Through Nora's letters, Ayn
learned that her youngest sister

had become
a professional set designer.

Ayn also learned
that her parents

had since died of illnesses
under Stalin,

and her sister Natasha
had been killed in a park

during an air raid
in World War II.

As difficult as it was
to accept these facts,

Ayn focused on her joy
at finding Nora,

and she immediately began
to make arrangements

to bring her to America.

In a letter to Nora,
she wrote,

"Along time has passed,

"but I was hoping
that you would know or feel

"that I have not forgotten you
and never will.

I have always dreamt
that I would see you someday."

In anticipation
of Nora's arrival,

Ayn rented an apartment
in her building in New York

and decorated it with Nora's
colorful paintings.

After almost 50 years
between them,

Nora finally arrived,
and Ayn was overjoyed.

But soon, she discovered
Nora had become

a very different person.

Although Nora claimed to be
an anti-communist,

she complained
about the futility of life,

and indeed had long
given in to that concept.

The sense of life Ayn had shared
with Nora in their youth

had been suffocated.

After a few days
in New York,

Nora openly declared
that she didn't like America

or Ayn's novels.

Soon, the sisters were not
speaking to one another.

Eventually, even though
Nora's husband was seriously ill

and could not secure
proper medical care in Russia,

they returned
to the Soviet Union.

Ayn watched the one person
to whom she had had

a meaningful bond
in her childhood

walk away from her

and walk willingly
into an old prison.

She herself had fought
so many years to survive.

It was inconceivable
for her to give in

to the tragedy
of Nora's fate.

To Ayn, suffering could never
be considered important.

You love this
country, don't you?

- Passionately.
- Yeah.

Very, very much,
and consciously.

I love it for its ideas.

And I've seen enough
of the other side,

so I can appreciate
this country.

You might even get emotional
about this country, huh?

Oh, yes.

Why, do you want me
to get emotional?

You might even thank God
for it, huh?

- Yeah.
- Yeah.

I may not literally
mean a God,

but I like what that
expression means.

"Thank God"
or "God bless you."

It means "the highest possible,"
to me,

and I will certainly thank God
for this country.

By 1978,

Frank had begun to show signs
of arteriosclerosis.

Soon he would have episodes of
memory loss and disorientation.

Earlier, Ayn had had her own
bout with illness,

a surgery to remove
a cancerous lesion

from her lung had forced
her to stop smoking,

yet even while convalescing,

she kept her vigil,
hoping that Frank would recover.

I had the privilege
of attending

her 50th anniversary party,
when her husband

was still pretty much oriented
and functional.

But it was one
of the very last times

that he could appear in public.

It was wonderful
to see them together,

and everybody made speeches
about, you know,

how their love
had endured 50 years.

The relationship between
Ayn and Frank was very noticeable,

because here was this couple,
married 50 years,

always holding hands.

She would always say,

when he came into the room,

"Hello, darling,"
with that Russian accent.

She didn't want to be
away from him for a second,

and he felt the same way.

The affection
was quite noticeable.

A lot of endearments--you know,

she called him Cubbyhole.

His pet name
for her with Kitten Fluff.

But it was quite affectionate.

In November of 1979,

not long after their 50th
wedding anniversary,

Frank's life came to an end
at the age of 82.

She was crushed.

She wouldn't show anything
outwardly.

She told me once
that she was like a lion

that when she was hurt,

she wanted to crawl off
in solitude--

or sick--

crawl off in solitude

and not show her suffering
to anyone else.

But you could see the absence
of fire in her.

I think when she lost Frank,

she basically lost
a will to live.

I thought that she was depressed
after that.

She didn't have much energy.

She didn't really want
to go places.

But she managed to keep going.

Ayn Rand once wrote that
"it is with a person's sense of life

"that one falls in love--

"with that essential sum,

"that fundamental stand or way

of facing existence, which is
the essence of a personality."

Now, that personality was gone.

Does this emotional impact
of this kind of pain

alter, in any way,
your own feelings, philosophies?

No. It only alters my position
in regards to the world.

In other words, which is
that I lost my top value.

I'm not too interested
in anything else.

But I'll survive it,

because I do love the world
in general,

and I do love ideas,

- and I do love man.
- Yes.

- But my personal is lost now.
- I know.

Isn't there a temptation
for you--

and I don't mean this to flip

to suggest that you're
not sincere in your writings

to hope for a reunion
with the person you love,

to look beyond the

I have asked myself just that,
seriously,

and I thought, "if I really
believed that for five minutes,

I would commit suicide
immediately."

And I know that
then I'd be right.

- Oh, to get to him right away.
- To get to him.

Of course.

I'll tell you more.

I asked myself, "How would I
feel if I think he

"is now on trial
before God or St. Peter,

and I'm not with him'?"

To testify
or to help him out?

Exactly.
My first desire in that case

would be to run to help him
and tell how good he was.

"There are two
aspects of man's existence

which are the special province
and expression

of his sense of life,"
she wrote, "love and art."

With Frank no longer beside her,

Ayn's depression intensified,

but as with all tragedy
and Ayn Rand,

it could not completely stifle
her enthusiasm for living.

After several attempts
to being bring Atlas Shrugged

to television and movie screens,

she decided to write

and produce her own film version
of the book.

Recovering somewhat
from the loss of Frank,

she had a renewed sense
of purpose.

In spite of her failing health,

she gave a speech
in New Orleans in 1981,

and announced her plans
to make Atlas Shrugged

into a miniseries.

She gave a lecture
on the natural connection

between the philosopher
and businessman,

and tried to open their eyes

to the fact that--

as she did in Atlas Shrugged,

that they were,
by ignoring philosophy,

financing their own demise.

Well, she agreed to speak
in New Orleans,

because the, uh--Jim Blanchard,

the man who was sponsoring
the conference--

National Conference
on Monetary Reform, I believe--

offered her what she had always
wanted, a private train.

Leonard Peikoff and I
escorted her from her hotel suite

back to the railroad car
because she wanted to

I think they were leaving
early in the morning,

and she wanted to go to sleep on
the car rather than the hotel.

And that was the last time
I saw her.

She was showing us
the railroad car.

She had such a capacity
for the delight

of all of the wonderful things
that man could make.

The fact that she
could travel in a railroad car

in such sumptuous comfort--

and it was just a total delight
for her.

Unfortunately, she took
ill on the train coming back,

and she realistically
never recovered.

Her faculties were still good
at the end.

A night or so before she died,

some new cover copy

for one of her forthcoming books
came from the publisher,

and she went over it with me,

and told them what to change
and so on,

and then, as was expected,
she just slipped away.

I once spent part of
an evening alone with Ayn Rand,

talking.

And somehow,
the subject of death came up,

and I asked her
if she was afraid of dying.

And she said, "No.

"Death is insignificant
and unimportant.

"Eternity is important,

and eternity is now."

I'll never forget that.

I tend to think
of this whole thing as ongoing.

That there is an eternity

and that we are going
to be a part of that eternity,

that we aren't just corpses
in graves when we die.

But we aren't corpses
in graves.

We are not there.

Don't you understand
that when this life is finished,

you are not there to say,
"Oh, how terrible

that I am a corpse."
No.

- Well, this is true.
- it's finished,

and the--
what I've always thought

was a sentence
from some Greek philosopher--

I don't, unfortunately,

remember who it was,
that I read at 16,

and it's affected me
all my life.

"l will not die.

It's the world that will end."

And that's absolutely true.

And you know, for me, now,

it should be a serious question,

because my time
is fairly limited,

and I have the same feeling,

that I will enjoy life
to the last moment,

and when it's the end,
I don't have to worry about it.

I'm not there.

It's too bad
that the world will end,

and I think
that a very wonderful world

will end with me,

but I've had my time.

I can't complain.

Ayn Rand died at
her home from heart failure

on March 6th, 1982.

"l decided to be a writer

"not in order to save the world
nor to serve my fellow man,

"but for the simple,

"personal, selfish,
egotistical happiness

"of creating the kind
of men and events

"l could like, respect,

"and admire.

"You see, I am an atheist,

"and I have only one religion--

the sublime and human nature."

"There is nothing
to approach the sanctity

"of the highest type
of man possible,

"and there is nothing that gives
me the same reverent feeling.

"The feeling when one spirit
wants to kneel, bareheaded.

"Do not call it hero worship,

"because it is more than that.

"It is a kind of strange
and improbable, white heat,

"where admiration
becomes religion,

"and religion
becomes philosophy,

"and philosophy,
the whole of one's life.

"My personal life
is a postscript to my novels.

"it consists of the sentence,

"'And I mean it.'

"I've always lived
by the philosophy

"l present my books,

"and it has worked for me
as it works for my characters.

"The concretes differ.

The abstractions are the same."

Ayn Rand waged a lifelong battle

for reason and individualism.

Like a ferocious angel,

shefoughL

and beside her in the ranks,
glowing from the tattered pages

of books that have been
read over and over again,

are the men and women
she created.

The characters
who will forever fight

for the same principles and the same sense of life.

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