King Vidor, Ayn Rand, Gary Cooper

King Vidor, Ayn Rand, Gary Cooper

Presented with the kind permission of C-SPAN

Recorded around May 12, 2002. Discussions with: Jeff Britting, Manager of Ayn Rand Archives, co-producer of documentary, Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life … Professor Eric Daniels, Duke University …Dr Leonard Peikoff, Founder of Ayn Rand Institute

From Sunset Boulevard and the Harmony Gold Theater, the guests talk about the political history of America and the world from the mid-1930s to post-World War II through the life and writings of novelist, screenwriter, and philosopher Ayn Rand.

With a specific look at Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, they examined why her writings gained currency in the time period and what influence they have had since.

They respond to audience telephone calls, faxes and electronic mail.

Hollywood in the 30s and 40s played a vital role in the life of Ayn Rand and the dissemination of her ideas, both through her writings in The Fountainhead, which came out in 1943, and the movie which hit the screen in 1949.

Ayn Rand was born in Russia in 1905 as Alisa Rosenbaum. She came to America in 1926, changed her name and never returned to her mother country. Her two novels, The Fountainhead (1943), and Atlas Shrugged, laid out her ideals of the supremacy of individual reason and rights over collective thought, which later became known as her philosophy of “Objectivism.”