Ayn Rand and the World She Made - Anne C. Heller [269]
Mrs. Cecil B. DeMille: “Studio Club Bids Called,” Los Angeles Times, May 8, 1925, p. A1.
as he later claimed he did: TPOAR, p. 77.
told them her new first name: AR: SOL, p. 70. AR and her family wrote hundreds of letters to each other from 1926 to 1936, but only the family’s letters to AR survive; hers were lost during the Nazi blockade of Leningrad in World War II (McConnell, “Recollections of Ayn Rand I,” based on interviews with AR’s sister NR). As to how AR and her parents and sisters overcame the problem of Soviet censors, BB recalled AR telling her that they wrote to each other through a third-party contact in Finland (interview with BB, September 15, 2005). Chances are, their mail would have been opened and read in any case.
“the embodiment of the world’s glory and glamour”: “Home Atmosphere.”
In 1926, the Hollywood film studios: Cecil B. DeMille, The Autobiography of Cecil B. DeMille, David Hayne, ed. (New York: Grandland Publishing, 1989; originally Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1959).
During her first day on the set: TPOAR, p. 77.
she complained: TPOAR, p. 78.
a woman named E. K. Adams: Payroll files, Cecil B. DeMille Collection, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, box 778, folder 1.
“like last year’s newspaper”: The Art of Fiction, pp. 75–76.
“I still hate [that woman] to this day”: TPOAR, p. 78.
spoke of her early days in Hollywood as “grim”: Zeanette Moore, “Studio Club Bolsters Film Novices’ Courage,” Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1945, p. B1.
dislike the movie capital of America and its “barbarians”: Ayn Rand, book review of Lillian Gish: The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me (by Lillian Gish with Ann Pinchot), The Objectivist, November 1969, p. 751.
“an intruder with all the world laughing at [her]”: Letter to Marjorie Williams, June 18, 1936 (LOAR, p. 32). In the same letter, AR first states a theme that will become a motif in TF and AS. In thanking Williams for the Studio Club’s help to gifted women, she writes: “Who is more worthy of help—the subnormal or the above-normal? Which of the two suffers more acutely: the misfit, who doesn’t know what he is missing, or the talented one who knows it only too well?”
$7.50 a day: AR, p. 36; The Autobiography of Cecil B. DeMille, p. 281.
enough to pay her room and board: TPOAR, p. 78.
she was able to borrow: BBTBI.
first professional effort in English: A manuscript of His Dog is on file in the Cecil B. DeMille Collection, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, box 1017, folder 6, with the following comment written in DeMille’s hand: “Do not return, as this was written only as a test and for her instruction.”
competent set piece: The same story was adapted very differently by another writer and released in 1927, starring Joseph Schildkraut. AR saw the movie in August and rated it a “four-minus” on a scale of one to five (Russian Writings on Hollywood, p. 207).
earning twenty-five dollars a week: “Summary of Charges to Future Productions,” May through September 1927, from the Cecil B. DeMille Collection, box 783, folder 20.
The Angel of Broadway: “Completed Productions” for the week ending April 14, 1927, from the Cecil B. DeMille Archives Collection, box 784, folder 1. The script was rewritten and released in the fall of 1927. It starred Leatrice Joy and Ivan Lebedeff, with the writing credit given to Lenore J. Coffee. American Film Index Catalog, taken from NYT, November 6, 1927.
In Craig’s Wife: Craig’s Wife, adapted by the original playwright and another writer, was released in 1928. AR’s versions of Angel of Broadway and Craig’s Wife can be found in the Cecil B. DeMille Collection box 1017, folders 6, 15, and 24.
frustrated by the secondhandedness of the work: TPOAR, p. 83.
Rand’s fingerprints are especially evident: Notes for The Skyscraper, July—September 1927 (JOAR, pp. 6–15).
The Skyscraper ends with a triumphant architect: The final film version of The Skyscraper, featuring William Boyd and Alan