Anne Heller - Ayn Rand and the World She Made

From Valli:R. W. Bradford, “The Search for We the Living,” Liberty , November 1988, p. 24, citing AR’s friend Erika Holzer.

opened to packed theaters:The 1942 movie apparently also “had a big box office” in Nazi Germany and Vichy France (unpublished letter from Donald Downes to Armitage Watkins, May 16, 1946; A. Watkins Collection, Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, box 80).

ordered the film to be withdrawn:Letter to John C. Gall, July 12, 1947, LOAR , p. 370.

and prints and negatives destroyed:“The Search for We the Living,” p. 22, quoting Massimo Ferrara, legal counsel to Scalera Films in 1942. Based on additional interviews with experts and historians, Bradford goes on to argue that the film wasn’t banned and that (1) the actors Alida Valli and possibly Rossano Brazzi lied to Rand, or (2) that Rand made the story up herself for publicity purposes, or (3) Rand and the actors misunderstood each other based on difficulties with English.

on the grounds that it was anti-Fascist:Ironically, according to documents in the A. Watkins Collection, AR had been just about to sell Italian film rights to a production company headed by Mussolini’s second son, Vittorio Mussolini, in March 1940. The war intervened; otherwise it might have been Vittorio’s production that his father’s troops would allegedly have seized.

This proved the kinship:Letter to John C. Gall, July 12, 1947 (LOAR , p. 370).

Rossano Brazzi:In R. W. Bradford’s chronicle of the film in Liberty , Brazzi is quoted as saying that he and Rand became “very good friends.” Brazzi went on: “She was a funny woman, very strong. Difficult woman. She was bisexual. She loved women. But … what a mind!”

Rand contacted Jack Warner:Letter to Jack Warner, February 14, 1948 (LOAR , p. 385).

paid her $35,000:“The Search for We the Living,” p. 24.

buy a new mink coat: TPOAR , p. 317.

It was not until 1972:Rand reportedly obtained her own print of the film but lost it sometime in the 1950s. In 1968, Henry and Erika Holzer, both attorneys, set out to find a copy. Unable to obtain one from Brazzi or Valli, in August 1968 they located the original negative and a print through a vintage film dealer in Rome, purchased it, and, with film producer Duncan Scott, re-edited it and added subtitles. Since then, Scott has offered occasional screenings of the film (“The Search for We the Living,” pp. 25–26).

item in a Hollywood gossip column:Hedda Hopper, “Looking at Hollywood,” Los Angeles Times , January 29, 1948, p. 18, and February 16, 1948, p. 14.

Cooper was welcome news:Gary Cooper was AR’s favorite film actor. But according to AR’s second cousin FB, AR wrote the family a letter saying she expected FO to get the part of Howard Roark and “was livid” when Gary Cooper got it; taped interview with FB, Minna Goldberg, and MS, conducted by BB, February 20, 1983.

she fired her Hollywood agent:Unpublished telegram from Alan Collins to H. N. Swanson, March 10, 1948, and unpublished letter from H. N. Swanson to Alan Collins, March 30, 1948 (H. N. Swanson Collection, Margaret Herrick Library, box 27).

She “went through hell”:BBTBI.

back in a Warner Bros. office:Letter to John B. Williams, March 27, 1948 (LOAR , p. 393).

hinted that Lauren Bacall had accepted the part:Hedda Hopper, “Looking at Hollywood,” Los Angeles Times , February 16, 1948, p. 14.

Margaret Sullavan said she wanted it:Hedda Hopper, “Looking at Hollywood,” Los Angeles Times , May 7, 1948, p. 19.

his eye on Jennifer Jones:BBTBI.

In early June: Patricia Neal , p. 58.

a twenty-two-year-old ingenue:Hedda Hopper, “Looking at Hollywood,” Los Angeles Times , June 21, 1948, p. 16.

she was horrified:BBTBI.

“After dinner we never saw the two of them again”:Stuart M. Kaminsky, Coop: The Life and Legend of Gary Cooper (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1980), p. 154.

completed the screenplay in late June:Letter to John L. B. Williams, June 26, 1948 (LOAR , p. 398).

a quarry near Fresno:Letter to Archibald Ogden, July 10, 1948 (LOAR , p. 402).

remained on the lot: TPOAR , p. 209.

turned in her script in a blaze of glory:Letter to Archibald Ogden, June 26, 1948 (LOAR , p. 398).

promised not to make any changes:Letter to Henry Blanke, June 26, 1948 (LOAR , p. 397).

was an excellent director:Letter to Archibald Ogden, June 26, 1948 (LOAR , p. 398).

ended with her plot and theme intact:She saw a rough cut the week of October 2 (letter to Ross Baker, October 2, 1948 [LOAR , p. 407]).

“For the first time in Hollywood history”:Letter to John Chamberlain, November 27, 1948, LOAR , p. 415.

were in an uproar of excitement:Letter to Alan Collins, January 8, 1949 (LOAR , p. 419).

“The whole thing was an enormously miserable experience”: TPOAR , p. 210.

constantly caved in to pressure:BBTBI.

on time and under budget:BBTBI.

no more changes made to the script: AR:SOL , DVD.

she defied them all: TPOAR , p. 211.

one line had been cut in final editing:BBTBI.

wrote a second article:Bosely Crowther, “The Screen in Review” and “In a Glass House,” NYT , July 9 and July 17, 1949, pp. 8 and XI, respectively. AR wrote and the Times published a long rebuttal, in which she said, confusingly, “My script was shot verbatim; this, to my knowledge, was the first and only instance of its kind in Hollywood” (“Ayn Rand Replies to Criticism of Her Film,” NYT , July 24, 1949, p. X4).

“Cooper in Race for Longest-Speech Oscar”:Harold Heffernan, The Bell Syndicate, 1949.

“In all the years I knew her”:Barbara Branden, “It’s a Dirty Job, But …,” unpublished essay, 2007, courtesy of the author.

It was the trip of a lifetime:Letters to IP, February 7 and February 14, 1948 (LOAR , pp. 188–96).

contacted her good pal: The Woman and the Dynamo , p. 304.

didn’t mention her former mentor’s help:Author interview with BB, December 16, 2005.

“I have seldom enjoyed anything”:Letter to IP, February 7 (LOAR , p. 188).

“It was the security of being first”: AS , p. 225; italics the author’s.

the greatness of man:Letter to IP, April 24, 1948 (LOAR , p. 212).

she reminded Paterson:Letter to IP, May 8, 1948 (LOAR , p. 211).

Altruism was like sawdust:Letter from IP to AR, May 13, 1948 (LOAR , p. 214).

She conceded to having:Letter to IP, May 17, 1948 (LOAR , pp. 215–17).

raise money for a new magazine:BBTBI.

in honor of Albert Jay Nock’s 1920s libertarian weekly: A Life with the Printed Word , pp. 136–37.