Ayn Rand and the World She Made
Page 70
At least twice a year: “Objectivist Calendar,” TON.
also tape-recorded answers: Author interview with Shelly Reuben, November 19, 2007.
without accepting any remuneration: MYWAR, p. 206.
NBI “was certainly profitable”: “The Liberty Interview: Barbara Branden, p. 54.
She let it be known that he, and only he: “Conversations with Ayn Rand,” p. 35.
traded their set of rooms: The Brandens had earlier moved from their single room into a one-bedroom apartment at 165 East Thirty-fifth Street before moving into 120 East Thirty-fourth.
Elayne Kalberman managed the newsletter staff: Author interview with EK, July 21, 2006.
transferred his paints: Author interview with Don Ventura, March 19, 2004.
An intercom joined the O’Connors’ apartment with the Brandens’: BB, in a taped interview with MS, February 18, 1983.
she tended to have fixed ideas about drawing: “Art and Cognition,” The Romantic Manifesto, p. 49.
She might point out that his colors: Facets of Ayn Rand, pp. 120–21.
she phoned her favorite painter: Author interview with JMB and Dr. Allan Blumenthal, March 23, 2004.
she asked knowledgable friends: Facets of Ayn Rand, p. 121.
“He is a tiger at the easel”: Facets of Ayn Rand, p. 121.
“It was the only time”: Author interview with Don Ventura, March 19, 2004.
“That’s what she was concerned about”: Author interview with JMB and Dr. Allan Blumenthal, September 2, 2004.
she forbade him to sell his paintings: Author interview with Don Ventura, March 19, 2004; author correspondence with BB, September 17, 2008.
she was discovered: Author interview with Roberta Satro, July 20, 2006. Satro was the on-s ite rental agent for 120 East Thirty-fourth Street and several other Murray Hill apartment buildings in the 1970s; in 1979 or 1980, she came upon Rand putting the painting in a trash can and asked if she could take it home. Rand agreed.
“I’m coming back to life”: JD, p. 314.
was the most important person in the world to him: TPOAR, p. 335.
offered to counsel the unhappy couple: JD, p. 314.
a therapeutic technique that she categorically rejected: “The Benefits and Hazards.”
resented what he later characterized as: “The Benefits and Hazards.”
“kill one’s capacity to be certain of anything”: Nathaniel Branden, “Mental Health versus Mysticism and Self-Sacrifice,” TON, March 1963, p. 9.
341 “Ayn sometimes seemed like a pussycat in comparison”: “The Liberty Interview: Barbara Branden,” p. 52, amended by BB in a note to the author, September 17, 2008.
displaying a seductive mixture: Roy Childs, from taped, unpublished interviews by journalist JW in preparation for a CBC special report on the tenth anniversary of AR’s death, titled Ideas: The Legacy of Ayn Rand (1992).
“so strong on purity”: Sinclair Lewis, Elmer Gantry (New York: Signet, 1970), p. 297.
“Omnisciate and inflamminate”: Author correspondence with Robert Hessen, December 8, 2007.
“he would go off on shopping sprees”: Author interview with Robert Hessen, October 17, 2007.
“Nathan had a theory about ‘men as tools’ “: Unpublished, taped interview with Barbara Weiss by BB, September 25, 1983.
typists found her exceptionally fair: Everyone who worked for AR professionally, from June Kurisu in the 1940s to Shelly Reuben in the 1960s, remembered her as scrupulously courteous and careful.
“She didn’t know how he’d been treating us”: Unpublished, taped interview with Barbara Weiss by BB, September 25, 1983.
“broke out into the most beautiful smile”: 100 Voices, Shelly Reuben, p. 373.
“I did it myself!”: TPOAR, p. 329.
spent hours a week: “Interview with Henry Mark Holzer,” p. 5.
“Miss Rand, would it be an infringement of your rights”: Unpublished, taped interview with Betty Scourby, conducted by Fred Cookinham, March 3, 2003.
“She had a huge number of young people”: Interview with JKT, from taped, unpublished interviews by journalist JW in preparation for a CBC special report on the tenth anniversary of AR’s death, titled Ideas: The Legacy of Ayn Rand (1992).
“The expression on her face”: Author interview with Don Ventura, April 28, 2004.
“frightening, really frightening”: Unpublished, taped interview with Betty Scourby, conducted by Fred Cookinham, March 3, 2003.
“In those days, people worshipped the ground he walked on”: Author interview with Don Ventura, March 19, 2004.
he won disciples: Author interview with Roger J. Callahan, November 4, 2003.
“except for a few blemishes”: TPOARC, p. 221.
He made it clear: “The Liberty Interview: Barbara Branden,” p. 57.
“He was the one who made a crusade”: “The Liberty Interview: Barbara Branden,” p. 57.
“This was before anyone knew”: The call took place on September 13, 1965 (author interview with Lee Clifford, November 5, 2007; letter from Clifford to BB, August 26, 1965, courtesy of Lee Clifford).
only moral giants could possibly pull it off: Karen Reedstrom, “Interview with Nathaniel Branden, Part 2,” Full Context, October 1996, p. 4; Al Ramrus (author correspondence, March 5, 2007). Bill Bucko, an NBI student and the translator of The Mysterious Valley into English, reports two occasions on which NB answered this question. The first time, early in the 1960s, he said, no, it is not possible to be in love with two women at the same time. “Such a man [would be] unclear about his values.” The second time, he answered yes. “How?” asked the questioner. “Get a bigger bed,” reportedly said NB, then added, “It would take a giant of introspection to do so;” reprinted from http://forums.4aynrandfans.com/index, which seems to have been removed from the Web.
“It sounded like bullshit at the time”: Author interview with Ed Nash, January 6, 2005.
sometimes said much the same thing: MYWAR, p. 304. JMB recalled that NB and AR “were [both] going around playing dangerous games. One night a bunch of us were eating in a restaurant and they started a conversation about how [truly] superior people would be able to do exactly what they were doing, which I didn’t buy for a second. But I thought, I can see why they are saying this” (author interview, March 23, 2004).
“No, but you can be half in love”: Reported by Betsy Speicher on http://forums.4aynrandfans.com/index, which seems to have been removed from the Web.
good-looking advertising account executive: Author interview with Iris Bell, March 8, 2004.
encouraged one of his male students: Author interview with Robert Hessen, whom NB urged to date Patrecia, November 2, 2007.
offered her and Larry Scott free marriage counseling: “Ayn Rand and Her Movement,” p. 8; notes on a November 12, 1968, conversation with Larry Scott by Al Ramrus, courtesy of Ramrus. Since conducting marriage counseling while flirting with or sleeping with one spouse would be unethical, both NB and BB point out that the therapy was unofficial and unpaid.
“as if she were entering a temple”: MYWAR, p. 281.
She hadn’t gone to college: JD, p. 290.
Unconditional female admiration: Author interview with Florence Hirschfeld, Jonathan Hirschfeld, and EK, August 25, 2006.
“what Nathan had never had in his life”: Author interview with BB, December 15, 2005.
“You would see an explosion”: MYWAR, p. 288.
he described her as an “Eddie Willers”: Author correspondence with BB, June 27, 2008.
good premises but no special gifts: TPOARC, RPJ, July 4, 1968, p. 326.
His body “will not obey him”: AS, p. 454.
The thought of being without
her was intolerable: “It’s a Dirty Job, But …”
his attraction to Patrecia would
pass: MYWAR, p. 288.
turned down modeling jobs: MYWAR, p. 290.
“to lie expertly”: JD, p. 328.
Branden “really cared for me”: Author correspondence with BB, June 27, 2008.
took him at his word: “The Liberty Interview: Barbara Branden,” p. 56.
Branden gradually lost discretion: Author interviews with Iris Bell, March 8, 2004, and Peter Crosby, June 13, 2007.
“the truth was evident”: TPOAR, p. 334.
He moved out: MYWAR, p. 309.
penthouse apartment on the twentieth floor: Author interview with BB, June 2, 2008.
346 a marriage he half hoped: Author correspondence with BB, June 27, 2008.
“operated as a shield”: JD, p. 339.
Rand spent many hours: TPOARC, RPJ, July 4, 1968, p. 207.
treated them with a kindness: TPOAR, p. 333.
attended the sessions under protest: Author correspondence with BB, June 27, 2008.
informed their unofficial therapist: TPOARC, RPJ, November 27, 1967, p. 237.
“Now, darling”: MYWAR, p. 309.
“a sense of [emotional] deadness”: JD, pp. 364–65.
her allegiance to Frank was difficult for him: JD, p. 367.
“if the ability to think of people”: TPOARC, RPJ, July 4, 1968, p. 319.
“You will always be a sexual
being”: JD, p. 352.
“You have no equals at any age”: JD, p. 371.
“happiness of a kind I had never known before”: JD, p. 358.
recover her reason: MYWAR, p. 299.
“She’s very American looking”: MYWAR, p. 291.
“What is magnificent”: MYWAR, p. 316.
volunteered as artist’s models: Author interviews with JMB, March 23, 2004, and Don Ventura, March 19, 2004.
assuming that she was supposed to keep her legs crossed: 100 Voices, Don Ventura, apparently referring to the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson broadcast on August 11, 1967, p. 244.
“When you’re with Patrecia”: JD, p. 302.
“I hated the calculations”: MYWAR, p. 315.
“I cannot stand people with ‘acts’”: TPOARC, RPJ, January 30, 1968, p. 283.
She was disturbed by their friendship: TPOARC, RPJ, February 14, 1968, p. 287.
“man-worship”: TPOARC, RPJ, July 4, 1968, p. 326.
“When, if not now?”: MYWAR, p. 299.
“We don’t want people to think”: MYWAR, p. 313. In 1966, Larry Scott left New York for California. Almost three years passed before he learned of his wife’s affair with NB. According to Iris Bell, who became friendly with Scott in Los Angeles, until then he ruminated about his broken marriage. He told Bell that “he would go off on his business trips. Then he would come back [to New York] and not understand what was going on in his marriage.” After one such trip, “he brought back a necklace for Patrecia and made a sexual overture. She was very cold. He talked to NB about that. NB said, ‘Well that’s how women are. You have to give her time to get back into the same mood with you,’” Bell recalled. “Larry was telling me about how much he loved Patrecia and how he had no understanding of why his marriage had fallen apart. It wasn’t until much later that I realized that while NB was talking to Larry this way, he was having an affair with Patrecia. Larry said that NB was never able to help him understand why his marriage fell apart.” At least until 1967, Scott displayed separate framed photographs of his ex-wife and of NB in the bedroom of his Los Angeles apartment. He learned about the affair between NB and Patrecia in the fall of 1968. He died in the 1990s (author interview with Iris Bell, March 8, 2004, and author correspondence with Al Ramrus, March 4, 2007).
“We’re just incompatible”: MYWAR, p. 313.
he could barely tolerate the strain: JD, p. 359.
Once separated and living apart: Author correspondence with BB, June 27, 2008.
when he begged for time: TPOAR, p. 336.
The Psychology of Self-Esteem: This would be published, sans introduction, in 1969, after AR had broken with him, under the auspices of a publishing company founded for this purpose by Objectivist Ed Nash. The book has never been out of print.
a work of genius: JD, p. 370.
“Just wait until [Ayn] writes the introduction”: “The Liberty Interview: Barbara Branden,” p. 57. In 1996, NB told an interviewer about the introduction, which was never written: “I believe that was owed me, after all the work I had done fighting for her work and all the compliments she had paid my book” (“Interview with Nathaniel Branden,” p. 7).
four hundred thousand dollars: Ayn Rand, “To Whom It May Concern,” The Objectivist, May 1968 issue (published October 1968), p. 450.
affordable on paper: A year later the NBI business manager Wilfred Schwartz was able to sell the lease to a new tenant for a premium of $55,000 (author correspondence with BB, June 27, 2008).
always paid back in the fall: Author correspondence with BB, June 27, 2008.
Rand had told Nathaniel not to bother her: Author correspondence with BB, September 17, 2008.
was only mildly put out: “To Whom It May Concern,” p. 452.
“I felt we were really in trouble”: Unpublished taped interview with Barbara Weiss, conducted by BB, September 25, 1983.
“Patrecia’s involvement”: JD, p. 370.
expected it to open: TPOAR, p. 342.
considered Patrecia: Files from 1967–68 on NBI Theater, Inc., and on production budgets, schedules, etc., for the aborted production of BB’s adaptation of TF, courtesy of MSC; author correspondence with BB, June 27, 2008.
FIFTEEN: EITHER/OR (THE BREAK): 1967–1968
“Pity for the guilty”: Rand, The Romantic Manifesto, p. 131.
a book-length essay: Ayn Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, The Objectivist, July 1966 to February 1967; republished as a paperback original by the Objectivist Press in June 1967. An expanded paperback edition is available from Plume.
Never among her popular works: As of mid-2008, the paperback edition had sold about 146,000 copies, according to ARI.
352n. In Ayn Rand’s view: “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology,” part 1, The Objectivist, July 1966, p. 103.
and a fiery, farsighted speech:“The Wreckage of the Consensus,” April and May 1967, reprinted in The Objectivist, April 1967, pp. 241–45, 257–64.
352 Marital counseling having ended: TPOARC, RPJ, July 4, 1968, p. 327. In notes to herself, AR recalled that it was NB who asked for the “psychotherapy” she provided; TPOARC, RPJ, July 4, 1968, p. 327. BB recalled that the sessions were an example of AR’s increasingly compulsive tendency to “psychologize;” “It’s a Dirty Job, But …”
placed their active relationship on hold: TPOARC, RPJ, July 4, 1968, p. 327.
He rationalized, improvised: TPOAR, p. 338.
he knew “years ago”: TPOARC, RPJ, November 27, 1967, p. 243.
“I feel real fear”: TPOARC, RPJ, November 27, 1967, p. 241.
Also, although he said he wanted: TPOARC, RPJ, February 14, 1968, p. 287.
“business, theatrical business”: TPOARC, RPJ, November 27, 1967, p. 242.
“in a man of Branden’s rationality”: TPOARC, RPJ, November 27, 1967, p. 241.
she had been unable to “project”: TPOARC, RPJ, November 27, 1967, p. 243.
“or, rather, admired”: TPOARC, RPJ, November 27, 1967, p. 240; “I do not fully believe that hypothesis,” she wrote regarding NB’s possible narcissism.
“Here is a man who”: TPOARC, RPJ, November 27, 1967, p. 244.
“on the same level as Kant and
Hegel”: The Ayn Rand Cult, p. 151.
“vanity, flattery-seeking”: TPOARC, RPJ, January 25, 1968, p. 256.
To “break with him entirely”: TPOARC, RPJ, November 27, 1967, p. 244.
By the late 1960s, her media appearances: OHP, Hank and Erika Holzer, February 9, 2006.
“You won’t attack me?”: The net-worktapes of AR’s appearances on The Tonight Show(August 11, October 26, and December 13, 1967) were reportedly destroyed in a fire. I watched a homemade videotape, courtesy of Kerry O’Quinn, an acquain
tance of AR in the 1960s and 1970s.
all but twelve of them positive: TPOAR, p. 325.
“more openly, romantically expressive”: TPOARC, RPJ, July 4, 1968, pp. 330–31.
His eyes were lifeless: TPOARC, RPJ, July 4, 1968, p. 331.
danced too often with Patrecia: MYWAR, pp. 324–25.
“sex problem”: TPOARC, RPJ, July 4, 1968, p. 331.
a “subconscious, total renunciation”: TPOARC, RPJ, January 30, 1968, p. 278.
might help to thaw: TPOARC, RPJ, July 4, 1968, p. 335.
very secret, very private, and very
spiritual romance: TPOARC, RPJ, July 4, 1968, p. 335.
she seems briefly to have considered: TPOARC, RPJ, February 14, 1968, p. 335.
“I would be the only remnant”: TPOARC, RPJ, March 30, 1968, p. 297.
“You have no right to casual friendships”: MYWAR, p. 331.
“I will not be Cyrano”: TPOARC, RPJ, February 14, 1968, p. 291.
He had surgery: TPOAR, p. 334.
returned to his classes: Author correspondence with Stephanie Cassidy, archivist of the Art Students League, April 22, 2007.
“I wish you hadn’t said it”: Author interview with JMB and Dr. Allan Blumenthal, March 23, 2004.
357 a young sculptor named Don Ventura: This section is based on author interviews with Ventura, March 19, 2004, and April 28, 2004.
he thought her accent was cute: AR never liked her Russian accent. When JMB once asked her why she didn’t try to correct it, Rand replied that it wasn’t in her to imitate anyone, as people who came to New York with accents had to do; this shows a certain self-consciousness and pride that AR had not exhibited when learning English in the 1920s (author interview with JMB and Dr. Allan Blumenthal, March 23, 2004).
surviving witnesses couldn’t agree: For example, the Brandens and Al Ramrus.
the magazine published a notice: The Objectivist, June 1967, p. 288.
Afterward, in a familiar pattern, Rand spoke disparagingly: “An Interview with Nathaniel Branden,” p. 12.
the woman’s eighteen-year-old son, Leonard: Author interview with Leonard Bogat, January 22, 2007.
“a horrible woman”: Author interview with Leonard Bogat, February 1, 2007.
“had been seeking an identity”: Author interviews with Don Ventura, March 19, 2004, and April 28, 2004.