A little history hat formed her philosophey about life in general,
In 1917, her father's shop was suddenly seized by Bolshevik soldiers, forcing the family to resume life in poverty in the Crimea. The situation profoundly impacted young Alissa, who developed strong feelings toward government intrusion into individual livelihood. She returned to her city of birth to attend the University of Petrograd, graduating in 1924, and then enrolled at the State Institute for Cinema Arts to study screenwriting.
Granted a visa to visit relatives in Chicago, Alissa left for the United States in early 1926, never to look back. She took on her soon-to-be-famous pen name and, after a few months in Chicago, moved to Hollywood to become a screenwriter.
Early Writing Career
Following a chance encounter with Hollywood titan Cecil B. DeMille, Rand became an extra on the set of his 1927 film
The King of Kings, where she met actor Frank O'Connor. They married in 1929, and she became an American citizen in 1931.
Rand landed a job as a clerk at RKO Pictures, eventually rising to head of the wardrobe department, and continued developing her craft as a writer. In 1932, she sold her screenplay
Red Pawn, a Soviet romantic thriller, to Universal Studios. She soon completed a courtroom drama called
Penthouse Legend, which featured the gimmick of audience members serving as the jury. In late 1934, Rand and her husband moved to New York City for its production, now renamed
Night of January 16th.
Around this time, Rand also completed her first novel,
We the Living. Published in 1936 after several rejections,
We the Living championed the moral authority of the individual through its heroine's battles with a Soviet totalitarian state. Rand followed with the novella
Anthem (1938), about a future collectivist dystopia in which "I" has been stamped out of the language.
'The Fountainhead' and 'Atlas Shrugged'
In 1937, Rand began researching a new novel by working for New York architect Ely Jacques Kahn. The result, after years of writing and more rejections, was
The Fountainhead. Underscoring Rand’s individualistic underpinnings, the book’s hero, architect Howard Roark, refuses to adhere to conventions, going so far as to blowing up one of his own creations. While not an immediate success,
The Fountainhead eventually achieved strong sales, and at the end of the decade became a feature film, with
Gary Cooper in the role of Roark.
Rand's ideas became even more explicit with the 1957 publication of
Atlas Shrugged. A massive work of more than 1,000 pages,
Atlas Shrugged portrays a future in which leading industrialists drop out of a collectivist society that exploits their talents, culminating with a notoriously lengthy speech by protagonist John Galt. The novel drew some harsh reviews, but became an immediate best seller.
If Hubby reads it, then we have both read it - he shares what he reads which I actually kinda like.
