Ayn Rand: In Her Own Words (2011) - full transcript

We are, as religious
people might put it,

children under God and
responsible, one for the other.

Now, why do you rebel?

What's wrong with this philosophy?

But that is what, in fact, makes
man a sacrificial animal.

I say that man is entitled
to his own happiness

and that he must
achieve it himself,

but that he cannot demand that
others give up their lives

to make him happy.

I hold that man should
have self-esteem.

Who are you, Ayn Rand?



When I say that,

I would like to know just a little
bit of your vital statistics.

You have an accent, which is...?

- Russian.
- Russian.

- You were born In Russia.
- Yes.

February 2,1905.
Petrograd, Russia.

At that time, it was
called St. Petersburg,

which is Leningrad now.

That used to be the largest
city in Russia at the time,

and comparatively considered not
very old by European standards

because it dates only
from the 18th century.

There's two sisters
younger than myself.

That is, there were three
daughters altogether.

I was the oldest, and then
there were two younger girls.



There were exactly
two-and-a-half year intervals.

That is, the second sister was two
and a half years younger than I,

and the youngest, five years.

That would be my father.

He was a self-made man,

and he owned a small business
which he had created himself,

and that is very
unusual for Russia.

By the time I was born, he
was already quite well-off.

I wouldn't call it
unusually wealthy,

but I would call it middle to
upper-middle class financially.

He had achieved it all himself

and had, besides, sent his
six sisters through college,

plus a younger brother.

He had six sisters
and two brothers.

He was a man who held ideals,

which I didn't discover
until I was 15,

very strong ideals, a man
of very firm conviction.

But you would never know it.

He was predominantly silent,
argued very little,

and he was one of the most
conscientious persons

about his work,

and that I have heard from
colleagues and other people.

He apparently was very good.

And strangely enough,

I learned later that what he would

have wanted to do
was to be a writer.

But I liked him as a person,

only, in childhood, I had
very little to do with him.

It's after we began to
be political allies

that I really felt a
real love for him.

I probably loved him even
then much more than Mother.

I'll say, frankly, it's a slightly

painful subject in
one respect only.

She was so wonderful

in being instrumental in
sending me to America

that I feel unfair in
saying anything critical,

so anything I say, can I
say it under the preface

that I appreciate what
she did enormously?

During my childhood, I
disliked her quite often.

We really did not get along.

My big clashes with
Mother in childhood

were the fact that I was
antisocial, as she would call it.

She always demanded that I be more
interested in other children.

Why didn't I like to
play with others?

Why didn't I have any girlfriends?

That was kind of the
nagging refrain.

I also knew that she disapproved
of me in every respect except one.

She was very proud
of my intelligence.

She was very proud to show me
off to the rest of the family.

I was very aware that there
was a definite rivalry

between her and her
sister's husband,

who was a rival with Mother

about the accomplishments
of their children.

It was too obvious, and
slightly embarrassing,

that I obviously was the
most brilliant of the six

by every kind of standard,

and this uncle resented it.

But that was her
attitude towards me.

In other words, she
would show me off,

and I suspect, in retrospect,

that she really liked me better
than the other children,

that I was the first one,

and she made, I think, more
fuss over me than the others,

but at the time, I would never
had said that I'm her favourite

nor that any of us
were her favourite.

She also was unusually
very badly temperamental.

She would have fits
of temperament,

during which she would declare

that she never wanted
to have any children,

that she is taking care of
us because it's her duty

and how much she hates it.

And I remember
thinking indignantly

from as far back as I can recall

that we did not choose to be born

and what is it that we are
expected to do about it,

that since we could not help it,

under what sort of obligation
should we consider ourselves?

It's the injustice,
the irrationality

of that kind of accusations

that I resented very much,

and as far as I was concerned,
I simply ignored it,

in the sense that it didn't
make me feel guilty,

it made me feel resentful.

My feeling about the family

was only to wait for the time

when I would grow up
and get out of there.

It isn't that I considered
myself so unhappy,

it's just that I had a very
strong sense very early

that anything that I
like had to be mine

and not Mother's and
not the family's,

because my difference
and my intellectuality

always took the form of values.

It would always be a
succession of people, books,

heroes in books, later in movies,

that became the symbol of,

"This is my world, and other
things are not my world."

1914 was a big turning point

in my life, anyway.

Mother subscribed, for me,

to a boys' magazine

because of the adventure stories.

Now, I remember

one illustration impressed me.

It was a picture
of that Englishman

you see standing at a wall

with a sword or something,
waiting for someone.

But this hero, and
his name was Cyrus,

was the perfect drawing
of my present hero:

tall, long-legged, with kind of...

You know, trousers and leggings,
the way soldiers wear,

but no jacket,

just an open-collared shirt, torn
in front, kind of open very low,

sleeves rolled at the elbows and
hair falling down over one eye,

elements of my...

At least the appearance
of what is my bromide

about my type of man

were completely taken
from that illustration.

The first time they're
presented in a story

is that they're all in a cage,

and the cage is being
rolled through this valley

to some kind of temple ceremony,

and they're all scared
except the hero.

And I remember the image...
The first illustration.

He is standing, holding
onto the bars of the cage

Where everybody else
is on the bottom,

sitting down or cringing.

Thereafter, up to the age of 12...

That's the next three years...
That was my exclusive love.

It was almost mystical in this
sense, that I felt it's...

I'm totally out of the concerns
of the reality of anybody.

What they're interested in
doesn't matter at all to me,

because I know
something much higher.

The next important highlight
would be the summer of 1914,

which is when we went to Europe.

Switzerland is my idea of heaven.

It was kind of a world of its own,

both the country and the whole
spirit of climbing the mountains

and seeing something unusual.

We were on our way from
Switzerland to Paris

when the war was declared.

And from then on, it was...

That was the end of a world,
which I didn't know at the time.

I remember thinking that
I was enormously annoyed

and hoped it would be
over with quickly.

Well, the original plan was to go
to several countries, you see,

predominantly Switzerland.

And we were caught
by the war in Europe.

And that was a big problem,

because you couldn't
come back, you see.

Russia was cut-off.

So we had to go via the
Scandinavian countries

over a mined sea, and the
boat before us was exploded,

and the one after us.

We got through.

I thought it was...
at the time, it

didn't have full reality for me,

but I knew that Mother
was terribly worried,

that something very
serious was going on.

Ah, then the Russian
Revolution was February 1917.

Then the communist revolution was
the so-called October Revolution,

and that was in the... In
that same year, October '17.

And we left in the fall of 1918.

By that time, there
was a civil war

going on in the south,
in the Ukraine.

And there were so-called
White Russian armies.

And we wanted to get out, to
escape communism, simply.

And Father got the
permit to travel

on the grounds that my sister,
who had had pneumonia twice,

needed to go to the Crimea.

So that's how we managed
to get out of Petrograd.

Now, that was in the fall of
1918, and we came back in 1921.

By '21, the civil war was over,
and all Russia was communist.

I began to suddenly
find myself, In effect.

Asking a lot of whys,
in an abstract manner,

but beginning to define the
reasons for what I believe.

And then I realised that
What I was now doing

is thinking in principle.

Today, I would say it was a
process of integration, really,

but that I wouldn't
have known then.

I think it may not
be irrelevant that

that was the year of the
start of the revolution.

The first, the springboard for it,

was the fact that I was
very much in sympathy

with the February Revolution,

because, you know, it was
the bloodless revolution,

Where everybody was for freedom.

And the whole atmosphere,

though it was in a kind of
a sentimental Russian way,

nevertheless, it was all the
glorification of freedom.

In my terms, it was
the individual.

But today, I would call it the
rights of the individual.

Why the individual's right? Why
is it right for him to be free?

Why is the strong,
independent man important?

By what right can
anybody tell a man

What he should do or
What he should live for?

And, of course, then, when the
October Revolution happened,

that's when my first
conviction began

of a kind which I
remember specifically

concluding the one
that I mentioned...

I prefaced with it earlier...

That nobody has the
right to tell men

to exist for the
sake of the state,

that the evil which before that I
would have called collectivism,

although I wouldn't
know the word...

It would be the group, the herd...

That kind of entity now began
to be statism... conscious.

As far as I can
account historically,

that from as far back
as I can remember,

I was so busy mentally
with my own concerns

that I didn't develop
any social instinct.

In that sense,

the idea of having friends
was never my first concern.

What I can't quite communicate
is the unimportance of people,

in that social sense, had for me.

I decided at that time

that I could never be in
love with an ordinary man.

And I told Mother and...
And the older people...

I was not secretive in
this sense at all...

That I'm in love with Kerensky.

I remember them objecting to it,
some of them sarcastically,

and Mother just a little... Oh,

indifferently, but
slightly annoyed.

She was always annoyed

because my enthusiasms
were always too strong.

But I remember them telling
me, how can I call it love?

And I remember them saying,
"This is just infatuation,"

or "puppy love," you know,
terms of that kind,

which made me stop
talking to them,

but it didn't bother
me particularly,

because I could not be in
love with anyone but a hero.

That was the only adult and
important issue in this.

And that attitude remained until
my first year in college.

In my last years in high school,

when girls were beginning
to go out on dates,

I remember feeling a
very superior contempt,

"How can they be
interested in just boys?"

I have to have a hero.

From the earliest age,

I had the impression, even
before the revolution,

that culture, civilisation,
anything which is interesting,

as I would have put
to me, is abroad.

Now, I, in a general
sort of sense,

thought that I would probably
be a writer in Russian.

Therefore, I don't think I
thought of settling abroad.

But what it amounted to would be
that I would probably live abroad,

as many Russians
in those days did,

that in one way or another,

what I would have
considered my home

would have been European culture.

I didn't begin to
even discover America

till about the last
years of high school.

For the first time, incidentally,

it was only the last
year of high school

that they gave us a small
course on American history.

Before that, in all history

courses, they gave
you only Europe,

Russian history, of
course, and European.

And it's in this particular
high school in the south

Where I graduated,

they had one course on America.

And to me, it was the
most incredible thing.

Before that, America was
mentioned in geography books,

but not as history.

I didn't really know about the
Declaration of Independence

or what the American system
is until the last year.

And I'm not sure that I even would
have grasped it all correctly.

I would not have had a clear idea
of capitalism or collectivism.

All I knew is that that's the
country of individualism.

That summer of 1921, we
returned to Petrograd.

And I went to college,
started college that year.

I went to two different schools
in two different cities,

and I was the top student there.

In addition to being
the top student,

did they ever measure
your intelligence

and tell your mum and dad,

"Oh, this girl is so bright.
This girl is a jewel"?

No, by... in my times,

they didn't have those
tests, and not in Russia.

But you knew that you were smart.

Oh, yes.

Did you feel that
school was too slow,

that you were so far
ahead of the material?

- Yes.
- How did you handle that?

How did you school
yourself, really,

beyond the... the curriculum
or curricula in the schools?

Is that of interest to you?

Yes, it really is.

I always tried to sit in
the back row of the class,

and I put a book in front of me,

and I was writing novels
from the age of 10.

I was writing screenplays at 8,

but I was writing novels
in class because I was...

Otherwise, I would
be terribly bored.

I was never discovered
because we had textbooks.

And if you read ahead of the
lesson that they present in class,

you could know what
the teacher said.

I had to read the textbook just
once, and then I knew the course.

So, I really think it had
a bad influence on me,

on my working discipline.

It was too easy and too boring.

But how did it affect
your working discipline?

I never had to make an effort.

I certainly did have to when
I began writing novels.

That's really difficult.

But in school, I had
no difficulties.

Oh, one horrible element was
the epidemics of typhus,

which, you know, is
worse than typhoid.

Typhoid is also a dangerous,
contagious disease,

but typhus is something
that exists only in Russia

and, I believe, China and
some oriental countries.

And it's a disease of dirt.

It's transmitted by lice.
And it's very deadly.

Most people die from it.

In other words, the mortality
is greater than the recovery,

plus the fact that
those who recover

can have all kind of
consequences for life,

like weakened eyesight or
all sorts of disabilities,

and there's very little
medical help for it.

Well, anytime you
went on a streetcar,

you took a chance on your
life in this respect,

because you could see vermin

on the people you are
squeezed up against.

Now, we used carnation oil
and kerosene on your hair,

which certainly smells awful,
but that's protection.

And in the middle of that...

This was my entrance
into youth you know,

I was trying to be glamorous.

It was not very easy.

My last year in university,

more theatres were
opening, smaller ones.

And I began to be
able to go and see

a few on the third, and
fourth-run houses, in effect.

And that fascinated me,

particularly because that
was a much more specific,

not merely symbolic,
View of life abroad.

As that was the reason why
for my last year in Russia

and getting ready for
hoping to come to America,

I decided to go to
that movie school

to learn the technique of movies
and production, generally.

And the great advantage
of going to that school

was that they gave you free
passes to all movie theatres,

since they were all state.

And then I began to see movies
every night, practically.

And that was the most
wonderful period,

so that those movie stars and
movie magazines from abroad

became, well, the world from Mars.

And I remember, there was
some American movies

Where you could see New York,

just shots, usually long shots,

and I would sit through two
shows just to catch it,

because it would be very brief.

They never had one
that showed much.

But you could get that
glimpse once in a while.

I can't tell you how glamorous
it was at that distance.

Well, it still is.

So, after I graduated from school

is when I got the job as a
guide through a museum.

And the museum was the
Peter and Paul Fortress

in Petrograd,

Where I had to lecture
on the history

of the place for excursions.

And I held that job until
I left for America.

It's about that period
after graduation

that we received letters from
some relatives of Mother's,

who... her first cousins, who
had left before the revolution,

long before I was born, actually.

Mother had met them
as a child, but

I wouldn't have known them at all,

and they were writing
to inquire how we were

and what was happening to us.

And Mother began a correspondence,

and that is when I and
Mother both had the idea

that perhaps they could
help me to go abroad,

because I was speaking of going
abroad in one way or another.

I was desperately anxious to go,
so we wrote to these relatives

that I would like to
come as a visitor,

and they sent me the affidavit,
the papers necessary,

and my main interest was
getting ready for this trip,

and studying English, which
I didn't know at all.

And I left for America
then in January 1926.

I left in 1926, alone.

All right.

Well, did you leave in fear,

or do you have childhood
memories of the...?

- In fear of what? Of Russia?
- Yeah.

- In complete loathing.
- Loathing?

For the whole country, and
including the tsarist period.

Look, it's very hard to explain.

It's almost impossible to
convey to a free people

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

I can 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...

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

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

They try to live 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're waiting
for a doorbell to ring,

if you are afraid of
everything and everybody,

if you live in a country where
human rights is nothing,

less than nothing,
and you know this.

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

because you may have
friends somewhere,

Where there is no law and
no rights of any kind.

It is the ugliest,
and, incidentally,

most mystical country on earth.

They have a materialistic
mysticism of their own.

Because if... the mystics,
the religious people,

tell you that usually the soul is
the only thing of value about you,

the body is evil,

and the Russians will think,

"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.

I arrived in New York.

I stayed in New York
only a couple days

with some friends of my relatives,

Whom they had asked to meet me,
and then proceeded to Chicago.

Stayed there for six
months with my relatives,

and then went on to
Hollywood on my own.

I borrowed money from
the relatives, $100.

I felt that I had
to sell something

or make a name for myself
as fast as possible.

I was here on a six months permit.

Because I couldn't yet hope to
write in a literary English,

I had figured out that,

since this was the day
of the silent movies,

I could write, even if it's
slightly broken English,

enough to write an
outline, the scenario,

just the original of a story,
and then they could...

Somebody else... Could
write the titles.

And one of my relatives,
one of Mother's cousins,

owned a movie theatre in Chicago,
at small neighbourhood theatre.

So she gave me, through
a distributor,

a letter of introduction from
the distributor in Chicago

to the DeMille Studio.

DeMille, at that time,

had an independent studio
of his own in Culver City.

What he was famous for is society,
glamour, sex, and adventure.

And I liked almost all of the
ones that I had seen in Russia,

so he was my particular idol
of the American screen.

When I arrived at the studio...

And I went to the publicity

department and
presented that letter,

and I told him what
I was interested in

was a junior screenwriter's
job, if it was possible.

I walk out of the studio,

and, you know, it's the colonial
kind of mansion in Culver City,

which was Pathé later.

And it has a driveway in
front of the main building

that goes to a gate.

And as I start to walk
down the driveway,

I see an open roadster parked,

and a man at the wheel talking
to somebody outside the car.

And it was DeMille.

And it wasn't too long
before he started driving.

He drives up to the gate, stops,

looks at me, and asks, "Why
are you looking at me?"

So I told him I had
just come from Russia,

and I'm very happy to see him.

So he opens the door of the
car and says, "Get in."

I didn't know where we were going.
I got in, and he started driving.

Now, isn't that a fantastic story?

And on the way I told him
that I wanted to be a writer,

and he was my favourite director.

And my English was atrocious,
as you can imagine.

I'm not sure how
much he understood,

but he seemed very pleasant,
sort of amused and interested.

Where he was driving
was the back lot.

They were shooting
"The King of Kings."

And they were on location.

What they called the
back lot of the studio

was some distance
away in the hills.

And they had the Jerusalem
streets built there,

and they were right in the
middle of the picture.

He told me on the way, as we
were approaching the set,

"Well, if you want
to work in pictures,

you should begin by watching
how they work on the set,

and by observing and learning.

So this will do you
good, you see."

So he brings me on the set,

and it's my first View of
motion-picture shooting,

and my actual first
full day in Hollywood,

the day after my arrival,
and it was fantastic.

I was so breathlessly
numb and shocked

that to this day, I can
remember the feeling.

During the rest of the day,

I did nothing except
watch the shooting.

And at the end of it, he
himself approached me.

I didn't ask.

He said, "Do you want
to come tomorrow?"

I said, "Certainly."

So he gave me a pass,
personally signed.

And I went home literally dazed.

And that was several
days in succession

that he gave me that pass, and
I'd come and watch the shooting.

Now, then, after the
first week or so,

he asked me what was
I doing financially.

So I told him, "I'm all right. I
have enough. But I need work."

He said, "Well, then, you
can work as an extra."

I had never thought of acting,

but this was not...
Wasn't really acting.

And I give him credit
for being sensitive.

I think he understood.

And, now, the extras,
they had by that time,

the big mob scenes where
there was 300 people,

and the lowest salary
began at $7.50 a day.

For me, it was really a fortune.

When they called a very
large set, a large crowd,

you had to be at the studio
by 6:00 in the morning.

And there were no buses going
to Culver City that early.

So in order to get to
the studio by 6:00,

I had to take a streetcar when it
was still dark to Los Angeles,

and then a street car
from Los Angeles

that went to Culver City.

It was the only form
of transportation.

It took something over two hours.

It was on the streetcar
out of Los Angeles,

the one going from Los
Angeles to Culver City,

that I first saw Frank.

I didn't see him enter,

so he was sitting some benches
further away, but facing me.

And I remember I suddenly
caught sight of this face,

and that was it.

I couldn't really say love,
except that... at that stage,

except that I was
desperately overwhelmed.

And then comes the Culver
City stop, the studio stop,

and he gets up and was
getting off the streetcar.

Well, that really delighted me.

Then I saw him on the set,
and he was magnificent.

I later, from memory, drew
a... A picture of him,

which I still have
somewhere, locked.

And it's quite a resemblance.

What I couldn't forget
was the profile,

the way he looked
with that headdress.

So I spent about three or four
days staring at him on the set.

And I was trying to figure
out some way to meet him.

I was watching him every minute.

He was always sitting
somewhere alone,

and no matter what
position he took,

you know, he was graceful
in any position.

Then it was about the
fourth or fifth day

that I figured where
I could do it,

and it was in this big scene
in the street of Jerusalem.

That was the part of the picture

Where Christ is carrying
the cross on his way,

you know, to the crucifixion.

Well, I watched very
carefully where he went,

because being a bit player,
he had special routines

that had to be specific
and repeated each time.

So then I decided,
"I'll get in his way."

So the next take, after I
had it all calculated,

I got right in his way
during that chaos,

While they were shooting,

and he stepped on my
foot and apologised.

The rest is history.

The sad part was that he
finished his work that day.

And I thought that they
might call him back,

because you never could tell...
For any takes or any continuity.

So 11 days after, I waited,
and he didn't come.

Now, I knew his name, but I
didn't know the address.

And I didn't know how to find out.

And because by then, I
was in love, seriously.

In fact, I knew I was in love from
the time I saw him on the set.

Now, what was happening
in my career was,

that when "The King
of Kings" was over,

DeMille offered me the
job as a junior writer.

Now, he really was wonderful.

The first story he gave me was
a story entitled "My Dog,"

and then another story was
called "The Skyscraper."

Because it was an
original he had bought,

and it involved a rivalry

of two rough and tough
construction workers

who were in love
with the same girl.

And he told me that he didn't
like the story very much,

but he liked the idea of a story

about the construction
of a skyscraper.

But it's because of that story
that I found Frank again.

There was a construction job
going on right in Hollywood

on... you know what is now the
Broadway department store there

on the corner of
Hollywood Boulevard?

And I made an appointment
with the superintendents

through somebody at the studio
to come to interview him

and watch the construction.

When I got there, he
had left a message

that he had been
detained somewhere,

and could I please
come an hour later?

I didn't want to go back home,

so I decided I would wait
in the public library,

which was just a block from there.

And I entered the public library,

and the first thing I see
is Frank sitting there.

And the thrilling thing
was that I stopped dead,

and he looked up.

I was some distance away.

And the way he smiled, I knew
he recognised me immediately.

And almost implicit in it,

I kind of sensed he
hadn't forgotten me.

So he got up.

And since you couldn't
talk there, he said,

"Let's go out," and we walked
around blocks, and we talked.

And this time, I remember, we
talked about movie originals

and what he wanted to do.

He had some ideas for originals.

They were all outrageous comedies.

I mean, outrageous in the
sense, almost blasphemous.

Some were religious subjects
or something like that.

So right then, he
invited me to dinner.

And from then on, we
were going steady.

Now, how the question
of a marriage came up,

I believe that one day,
Frank just talked about it.

I didn't ask him to.

And we were married
on April 15, 1929.

And it was just a proper,
non-religious ceremony.

The judge's chambers in the...

You know, I think it's the Hall
of Justice in Los Angeles,

Where the... which they show very
often in the "Dragnet" movies.

Anyway, once I was checked
in as the wife of a citizen,

I felt security for the
first time in years,

at least politically.

- You are married?
- Yu.

Your husband, is he
an industrialist?

No, he's an artist. His
name is Frank O'Connor.

- And he... not the writer?
- He paints.

- No, not the writer.
- He paints.

And does he live
from his painting?

He's just beginning
to study painting.

- I see.
- He was a designer before.

Is he supported in his efforts
by the... by the state?

Most certainly not.

He's supported by you
for the time being?

No, by his own work,
actually, in the past.

By me if necessary, but
that isn't quite necessary.

And there is no...

There is no contradiction
here, in that...

In that you help him?

No, because you see, I am
in love with him selfishly.

It is to my own interest to
help him if he ever needed it.

I would not call that a sacrifice,

because I take selfish
pleasure in it.

Now, after, I had to do something,

and this was the
Depression approaching,

so that it was very, very
difficult to find anything.

And the only things that were
available were waitresses' jobs.

And so I tried that.

And I didn't even know
the names of the foods.

So the first restaurant, I
was fired the same day.

The last one, I
lasted a whole week.

And then I did envelope-stuffing

and tried to sell subscriptions
to the Hollywood Citizen.

I hated those jobs. I
hated that whole period.

I regarded it like
"Rock in the Quarry,"

only much worse

because Rock would at least
be much more conscious

of what he was doing and
do it intentionally.

I felt that this was
despair and horror.

It's at that time that
a friend of ours,

who was a... he... He
was a Russian actor.

He got me a job in
the RKO wardrobe.

A friend of his had just got
the job of art director

in charge of all
those departments,

and that's the only job where
they could use someone

who couldn't type
or take shorthand.

And I got this job at $20 a week.

Within six months, I got $25.

I got a raise, without
having asked for it.

And a year later, I was the
head of the department.

And I really did very well,
loathing and hating it.

But it was really a happy
period, in every sense.

Now, the RKO job, of
course, solved everything,

which is why, in spite of hating
it, I was delighted to have it.

To begin with, I had
a steady income.

And at that time, Frank
was working fairly well,

so we could take an apartment.

And we took an apartment right
across the street from RKO.

It was our first home,
and he decorated it,

and it's the first time I
saw his artistic ability.

He did it really out of nothing.

It was a furnished apartment,

but he built extra shelves
and framed pictures...

Or the kind of little objects
that he could always find

in second-hand shops... And
he did it beautifully.

It looked much, much
more than what it was.

And then, through the
RKO connections,

I got a pull, in effect,
with Central Casting,

so that Frank was kept
working almost steadily,

which didn't mean every day, but
certainly several days a week,

and long jobs, you know, where
he was on one set for days.

And then we began to
really breathe a little,

and we bought our first car.

It was a second-hand
car, a convertible,

and it was wonderful... a hash.

We bought it on time,
but we paid for it.

And that was the period
when Frank gave me my desk,

which he had made to order,
the one that's still there,

and my first portable typewriter,
which I have, and a radio.

So the years in wardrobe were
comparatively secure for us.

And, you see, the Depression
was the fall of that year.

After that, when everybody
was losing jobs,

I worked all through
the Depression,

and that was fortunate,

as during that period
that I began to write.

And it's in that period when
I was at RKO that I began...

I decided I was ready
for my first novel.

And it was partly, as I said,

Frank's and his
brothers' influence

that made me decide
on "We The Living,"

because they were telling me
that I must do a novel on Russia

and saying just what... All
the things I had been saying

in conversation about
communism in Russia.

The situation of "We The Living"
is practically biographical...

Autobiographical in the
sense of background.

I was taking chronologically
the exact events

as they were happening
at that time.

In the first year, when I
first went to college,

students were quite outspoken.

And I attended my first
student meeting,

just as I describe
in "We The Living,"

and almost fell in love
with one of the young men

who was a conservative

and was making violent
anti-soviet speeches,

and I felt very romantically
impressed with him

for a single value.

He was anonymously,
arrogantly outspoken

against the communists.

And the first meeting
that I attended,

they were making the speech...
He was making the speech

which I quoted in "We The Living."

That was an authentic one,

that Russian students had
always been in the vanguard

of any fight against tyranny,
no matter what colour.

And statements like that, they
were quite anti-communist.

And in among the students,

there was an official communist
cell in the university,

and the people who belonged to it
wore a certain kind of red badges.

And they were very much despised
by the majority of the students.

They were practically ostracised
in a quietly hostile way,

so that the atmosphere was quite
free, just that first year.

And I made quite a few very...

Varying statements
at those meetings.

I wouldn't be allowed
to make speeches yet.

See, the freshmen, the
first-year, was not allowed.

We were allowed to vote.

This was elections
for student council.

But you weren't allowed
to make speeches

or do anything until
the second year.

By allowed, I don't mean by law,
but simply by student conventions.

And then I started
arguments with communists.

And I remember one day
telling one of them

that they will all be hung
from street lanterns someday,

from lampposts, and then
went home terrified.

And that night, I
really was afraid,

because I realised that I had
put my whole family in danger.

By the end of that first year,
there was a purge of students.

They began to tighten.

And that same young man,
plus a lot of others,

and girls who had
gone out with them

but weren't political
in any sense,

were all sent to Siberia.

By the second year, there were
no more political speeches.

Why is it so... I'm
still not quite sure

Why you're so harsh on those who
would sacrifice for other people.

Because they are...

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 volk, 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.

I also wrote two screen originals,

both of them laid in Russia,
and I sold one of them,

which was "Red Pawn,"
to Universal Pictures.

And along with the sale
went a six-weeks job

to write the first adaptation
of it in screen form,

because the original was
just an eight-page synopsis.

Now, on the proceeds
of "Red Pawn,"

I wrote "Night of January 16th."

MGM took an option on
"Night of January 16th."

It was called "Penthouse Legend."

I wrote it as a stage play, and
I had an agent in Hollywood

who had a representative
in New York.

In the meantime, MGM
became interested

and took one of the producers,
and they took an option on it,

and I went to MGM to write
a screen adaptation,

which I had a miserable time with.

And I wrote the screenplay, but
they didn't like it, apparently,

and they didn't
pick up the option.

But that gave us some more money.

Then I finished "We The Living"
and sent it off to New York,

and I had a terrible time with it,

because I began waiting for
letters from the agents.

I had asked them to report
to me what happens.

And it would be one
rejection after another.

Our main income by that time was
Frank's... his work in pictures.

I mean, I think by the time
we landed in New York,

we had $50 between us.

Frank's brother was here,

and so we had someone at least
to borrow from a little.

But not much, because he
didn't have much himself.

That's when we lived
in the furnished room,

and that was as near as we
came to real starvation.

It was much worse than Hollywood.

It was already after 1929 and...
And the Depression, you see.

So the only thing I got
was being a reader,

not for Paramount,
which came later,

but for RKO, first, and then MGM.

And I was doing outside reading.

We lived... I remember our budget
was approximately $11 a week,

which was all I could count on.

But my one advantage was I could
read several languages...

French, German, and Russian.

I could read German enough
to make a synopsis.

And so they were giving me
most of the foreign stuff.

They even had some
Soviet Russian plays

that I synopsised for them,
which nobody would ever buy.

Now, nothing was happening
on "We The Living"

except rejections
during that year.

But the offer from Macmillan came
when we were in Philadelphia

on the try-out of "Night
of January 16th."

I got a letter from
Ann Watkins saying

that Macmillan wants to buy it.

The first idea for
"The Fountainhead"

came while I was still
on "We The Living."

I don't remember the
exact date specifically

as the birth of "The
Fountainhead" as such.

And this was the
question in my mind

about the difference between me

and one girl I knew in
Hollywood in pictures.

It was a girl whom we met.

She happened to live in the
same apartment building,

and she worked at RKO.

She seemed to be
enormously ambitious.

She was definitely a
Hollywood climber.

And a question I asked her is,

can she tell me what
is her goal in life?

She said, "If nobody
had an automobile,

I would not want one.

If some people have
two automobiles,

I want two automobiles."

It was literally like one
of those light bulbs

going off in my mind, like
a dramatic revelation,

that I saw immediately
the principal difference

between me and this girl, and
that was Roark and Keating.

It was in the fall of 1935, after
"January 16th" had opened,

that I made my first
notes for the novel,

and I remember the date because
my first notes I still have,

and the date is marked on them.

And then, of course, one
of the first things I did

was read Frank Lloyd
Wright's biography.

There were very few books except
Frank Lloyd Wright's biography

on the careers of architects...
Practically none.

And then while I was studying
architecture generally,

which was one line of work that
the plot line consisted of

now working out the
theme in action.

And it was really worked
out theoretically.

For instance, the characters
of Wynand and Toohey

were the next step.

The procedure of my thought was

that if we take the ideal
man at the centre...

That is really the peak of
the story, that's Roark...

Then, in relation to him, I show
three other types in this way.

Roark is the man who could
be the ideal man and was.

Wynand is the man who
wasn't but could have been.

Keating was the man who
wasn't and didn't know it.

Toohey is the man who was not
the ideal man and knew it.

That... that was the
definition for myself

as to why I take these
four as the key figures.

What I liked most was that,

of any predominant group
of the population,

the majority of the letters,
and all of them good,

were from men in the
armed services.

This was during the war.

And I remember letters
from flyers, for instance,

saying that after every mission,
they would gather around a candle

and read passages from
"The Fountainhead."

And others, an awful lot
from young aviators...

Another letter that said he
would have felt much better

if he thought that what
this war is fought for

is for the ideals of
"The Fountainhead."

And all those letters
coming from overseas.

I answered as many
as I could of those.

They were the best.

And so, this telephone call came
and said they were interested

in the movie rights
to "Fountainhead."

And they want to know
What price I would take.

I said, "$50,000."

They said, "I want to warn you

that you are running the
risk of losing the sale."

I said, "I'll take that chance."

And then there was...

There was a delay of I
think a week or 10 days.

In the meantime, I
had an appointment

with some businessman to meet him
for lunch to discuss my idea

of the conservative
campaign for the book.

I come back home, and the
moment I open the door,

Frank is standing somewhere in
the middle of the living room,

and I knew something had happened.

There was an abnormal look on
his face... a benevolent one.

He said, "Well, darling,

you've earned $50,000 while
you were out to lunch,"

meaning that Warner
Bros. Had accepted it.

And they made only one condition,

that I come to Hollywood
to adapt it...

They'll pay the transportation...

And that I give them four weeks
free, included in the price.

What I remember, immediately
after this telephone call,

Frank and I go out to dinner.

And usually, you see, if I
was busy in the afternoon,

I had no time to cook.

We ate in a little cafeteria.

It was a pretty bad place to eat,

but very convenient
when we couldn't cook.

So we go out to dinner,

and we both had the
same experience.

We always, you know, selected food

by the right-hand side of
the menu, by the price.

And I think there were two types
of dinners... 65 cents and 45.

We always ate the 45 dinner.

And it comes that we both,
after we compared notes,

started looking at
the 45-cent dinner

and suddenly remembered
we can have the 65.

This made the most...
The... the issue of wealth,

that made it realer
than anything else,

that fact that we
suddenly could order

a 65-cent dinner if we wanted to,

and it was a marvellous feeling.

And then that night, I
couldn't sleep, of course.

I sat at my desk, just gloating,

and I had a small light so
that Frank could sleep.

And I'd hear him turning and

twisting, and I
finally asked him...

It was hours in the
middle of the night...

I said, "Frank, what's the matter?

You can't sleep, either?
Are you gloating, too?"

He said, "Yes, I'm
afflicted, too."

What was also very thrilling was
our going to Hollywood by train.

I remember, I had only gone there
once before on a day coach.

We had come back to New York
by car, which had broken down.

So we were on the bottom
of the travelling list.

The next step is we go to
Hollywood in top luxury

because Warner Bros. Was providing
the tickets and everything.

And the transition to this
way of life was incredible.

That whole trip, to this day,

we both remember it as
an enormous highlight,

because, again, it was
dramatically sudden.

It was the feeling that we
can that was marvellous.

The only advantage of poverty

is if you can get the
contrast that way

and also to know that
we had earned it.

This was marvellous.

I remember the time
when I was working

on "The Fountainhead"
at Warner Bros.

An Associated Press
man interviewed me.

He was not assigned to
Hollywood, you see.

And he interviewed me on
the Warner Bros. Lot,

and he questioned me
about my new novel,

on which I was then working, and
he wanted to know the theme.

I didn't state the whole theme.

But I told him just
the background...

It would be railroads
and heavy industry.

And I said to him, "The novel
will combine metaphysics,

morality, politics,
economics, and sex."

I started writing on
September 2,1946.

And the reason why I used
the date September 2nd

was simply because that was the
day on which I started writing.

And since it's the same time
of the year in the story,

I thought it's a
convenient private

joke or private symbolism.

"Atlas" was the one central
integrating purpose

of everything I did.

The first step was to project
in a generalised way

a kind of philosophical
progression

of what would be needed,

What kind of men or characters

would be needed to carry
a story of that kind.

Galt and Dagny were the two
set almost immediately.

Dagny was always the type

that I intended to present
someday as my ideal woman,

or as the feminine
Roark, in effect,

to do in my metaphysics
What Roark did.

And for this type of story,

a woman engineer
would be just ideal.

The difficulty with Galt's speech

was that I knew in advance it
would have to be along speech,

summing up the essentials of
all the issues in the novel.

However, I had no idea what a
difficult job it would be.

I knew that this is going to be

the hardest chapter
in the whole book,

and that the climax will be passed
when I finished that speech.

And do you know,

the underestimation of my whole
life was that I thought...

Well, somewhat dreamt
that it would take

at least three months.

But, you know, it took two years.

It was after I had
finished Galt's speech

that I decided to start
submitting it to publishers.

And, you see, I had a
contract with Bobbs-Merrill

for "The Fountainhead"

which included an option
on my next two novels,

on terms to be agreed upon.

And Alan Collins had told me
that it's a mere formality.

I have to submit it, and then
we will not agree on terms.

He did not think they would
give me the kind of terms

that we thought we would
ask from other publishers.

And I explained to
Random House boys

just what my problem
was as they opened,

and it's then that Bennett Cerf
came up with a brilliant idea...

A philosophical contest.

He said, "Why don't we select
four or five publishers

Whom we are most
interested in, and

submit the book simultaneously?"

And it wouldn't be an issue
of bidding for conditions,

that I would ask the
publishers to read it

and to tell me what
their attitude would be

philosophically and ideologically.

I was very startled
by Donald Klopfer's

philosophical acuteness

when he asked me the
following question.

He said, "But if this
is an uncompromising

defence of capitalism,

wouldn't you have to clash

with the Judeo-Christian
tradition of ethics?"

And that was the second
that just got him the book.

And what's wrong with
loving your fellow man?

Christ, every important moral
leader in man's history,

has taught us that we
should love one another.

Why, then, is this kind of
love, in your mind, immoral?

It is immoral if it is a love
placed above one's self.

It is more... more than
immoral. It's impossible.

Because when you are asked to
love everybody indiscriminately,

that is to love people
Without any standard,

to love them
regardless of the fact

of whether they have
any value or virtue,

you are asked to love nobody.

But in a sense, in your
book, you talk about love

as if it were a business
deal of some kind.

Isn't the essence of
love that it is above...

Above self-interest?

Well, let me make it
concrete for you...

What would it mean to have
love above self-interest?

It would mean, for
instance, that a husband

would tell his wife,
if he were moral,

according to the
conventional morality,

that, "I am marrying you
just for your own sake.

I have no personal interest in it,

but I am so unselfish

that I am marrying you
only for your own good."

Well, should husbands
and wives...?

Would any woman like that?

Should husbands and wives, Ayn,
tally up at the end of the day

and say, "Well,
now, wait a minute.

I love her if she's done
enough for me today,

or she loves me if...

if I have properly
performed my functions"?

Oh, no, you misunderstood me.

That is not how love
should be treated.

I agree with you that it should
be treated like a business deal,

but every business has
to have its own terms

and its own kind of currency.

And in love, the
currency is virtue.

You love people not
for what you do to...

for them or what they do for you.

You love them for their values,

the virtues which they have
achieved in their own character.

You don't love causelessly.

You don't love everybody
indiscriminately.

You love only those
who deserve it.

And that is one of the main
points I'm presenting...

new morality, a moral
defence of capitalism,

without which it can't be
defended, because it does clash.

How was writing novels
difficult for you?

Because it's an enormous context

that you have to keep in
mind, an enormous structure.

You can't do it inspirationally.

You can't do it by just looking
at the big piece of paper once

and deciding what
you're going to do.

It's a whole enormous structure,

much more complicated
than a building.

And you have to keep
it all in your mind,

never contradict your
outline, and carry it out.

It's killingly difficult, but
wonderful when you've succeeded.

My philosophy, in essence,

is the concept of man
as a heroic being

with his own happiness as the
moral purpose of his life,

with productive achievement
as his noblest activity,

and reason as his only absolute.

Do you consider yourself
primarily a novelist

or primarily a philosopher?

I would say I'm primarily
both. Finally.

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, concrete 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 the code of morality.

Therefore, I had to
do my own thinking.

I had to define my own
full philosophical system

in order to discover and present

the kind of ideas and premises
that make an ideal man possible.

At the sales conference
at Random House

preceding the publication
of "Atlas Shrugged,"

one of the book salesmen asked
me whether I could present

the essence of my philosophy
While standing on one foot.

I did, as follows.

Objective reality.

Reason.

Self-interest.

Capitalism.

If you want this translated
into simple language,

it would read, "Nature to be
commanded, not be obeyed,"

or, "Wishing won't make it so.

You can't eat your
cake and have it, too.

Man is an end in himself.

Give me liberty,
or give me death."

If you held this concept
with total consistency

as the base of your convictions,

you would have a full
philosophical system

to guide the course of your life.

But to hold them with
total consistency,

to understand, to define,
to prove, and to apply them

requires volumes of thought,

which is why philosophy
cannot be discussed

While standing on one foot,

nor while standing on two feet
on both sides of every fence.

This last is the predominant
philosophical position today,

particularly in the
field of politics.

My philosophy, objectivism,

holds that reality exists
as an objective absolute.

Facts are facts independent
of man's feelings,

Wishes, hopes, or fears.

I would like to think
that there is something

beyond the end of this
thing we call life.

But tell me... supposing you
were convinced that there isn't.

What difference would
it make to you now?

Oh, it would make a
tremendous difference to me.

Yeah, I think so.

But I think for the better.

Well, you see, I
think for the worse.

I wouldn't... I wouldn't like to
believe that when this body dies,

that this spirit is
all... is now gone,

that it's... it's...
it's defeated.

It's not... not defeated.

Think of it the other way.

If you know that this life
is all that you have,

wouldn't you make the most of it?

Reason, the faculty which
identifies and integrates

the material provided
by man's senses,

is man's only means of
perceiving reality,

his only source of knowledge,
his only guide to action,

and his basic means of survival.

Why can't I be a reasonable
philosopher walking around,

wondering what it's all about,

struggling, striving,
trying to understand,

enjoying the quest
and the journey,

and... and then in the last...

The last little part
of my consciousness,

I say, "I know you're
there somewhere.

I don't understand why
you did it this way,

but I certainly can't wait
to die and find out"?

Do you appreciate the
question? Do you understand?

Why are those two
things not possible?

Yes, you've said it, I
think, unintentionally.

You said, "So I can't wait
to die and find out."

That... I am serious...

Is one of the results
of acting on faith.

You can't wait to get
out of this life.

And there... what's
wrong with that?

Because this life is
wonderful, as you said.

Because if you look at the
universe, it's wonderful.

And you have to use your life to
the best of your understanding.

If you go by emotions, not reason,

it means you're going
against reality.

Something exists,
something is right,

and you say, "No, I don't like it,

because I want to believe
something else."

I see.

You, in effect, go by emotions,
by your whims, not by reason.

And religion or the God
concept or faith or worship

has people...

Has people thinking of
life as a veil of tears...

That's right.

Through which you will probably
not get without falling.

You are essentially an evil
person who is bent toward...

Well, most religions
do preach just that.

And you don't believe that?

God, no.

I hold that if man
wants to live on Earth

and to live as a human being,

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.

What... 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,

is the self-sacrificing
person who is an altruist.

And what's wrong with that?

Well, 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?

Why are you always the outsider
and the sacrificial animal?

For a good relationship,
there should be no victims.

The ideal
political-economic system

is laissez-faire capitalism.

It is a system where men
deal with one another,

not as victims and executioners,
nor as masters and slaves,

but as traders,

by free, voluntary exchange
to mutual benefit.

It is a system where no man may
obtain any values from others

by resorting to physical force,

and no man may initiate

the use of physical
force against others.

The government acts
only as a policeman

that protects man's rights.

It uses physical force
only in retaliation

and only against those
who initiate its use,

such as criminals or
foreign invaders.

And you believe that
there should be no right

by the government to tax?

You believe that there
should be no such thing

as welfare legislation,
unemployment compensation,

regulation during times of stress,

certain kinds of rent controls
and things like that?

That's right. I'm opposed
to all forms of control.

I am for an absolute
laissez-faire,

free, unregulated economy.

Let me put it briefly.

I am for the separation
of state and economics.

Just as we had separation
of state and church,

which led to peaceful coexistence
among different religions

after a period of religious wars,

so the same applies to economics.

If you separate the
government from economics,

if you do not regulate
production and trade,

you will have peaceful cooperation
and harmony and justice among men.

Capitalism was the system
originated in the United States.

Its success, its progress,
its achievements

are unprecedented
in human history.

America's political philosophy

was based on man's right to his
own life, to his own liberty,

to the pursuit of
his own happiness,

which means a man's right
to exist for his own sake.

That was America's
implicit moral code,

but it had not been
formulated explicitly.

This was the flaw in her
intellectual armour,

which is now destroying her.

The trouble with this country

is that it was based on the
right philosophy originally,

by the Founding Fathers,

but they did not have a moral code

to match the... the political
ideas which they had.

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. Oh, yes.

Why? 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 would certainly thank
God for this country.

What I've always thought

was a sentence from some
Greek philosopher...

I don't, unfortunately,
remember who it was.

I got it at 16, and it's
affected me all my life.

"I 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 sad.

It's too bad that
the world will end,

and I think a very wonderful
world will end with me.

But I've had my time.
I can't complain.

And at the conclusion, I will say
it's a very benevolent universe,

and I love it, and any struggles
were worth it, and how.

And I don't regret a minute of it.

What I mean is that the struggle,

all of the unhappiness is
enormously unimportant.

But the positive is wonderful.

And if it's the last
interview of my life,

I would... I hope I will... I
know I will be saying it at 80.

It's a benevolent universe.