Ayn Rand and the World She Made - Anne C. Heller [278]
“out to puncture a bubble—with a bludgeon”: Ben Belitt, “The Red and the White,” The Nation, April 22, 1936, p. 523.
ended Ayn Rand’s expectations of receiving literary “justice”: BBTBI.
average American incomes were well under $1,500 a year: Based on data from the “Statistics of Income” report, IRS archives.
royalties of between $200 and $1,200 a week: Royalty statements, various dates (A. Watkins Collection, Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, box 178).
closed on April 4, 1936: “Agreement with RKO Radio Pictures,” July 13, 1938 (A. Watkins Collection, Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, box 152).
theatrical rights had been sold: “Agreement with RKO Radio Pictures,” July 13, 1938 (A. Watkins Collection, Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, box 152); Lee Shippey, “The Lee Side o’ L.A.,” Los Angeles Times, March 31, 1936, p. A4.
filling seats in the El Capitan Theatre: Lee Shippey, “The Lee Side o’ L.A.,” Los Angeles Times, March 31, 1936, p. A4; “The Night of January 16 Unique Courtroom Drama,” Los Angeles Times, March 2, 1936, p. 17.
road show was about to open in Chicago: Introduction to The Night of January 16th, Three Plays, p. 3.
royalties of ten dollars: “Royalty Statements,” various dates (A. Watkins Collection, Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, box 178).
certain that she was being ostracized: TPOAR, p. 127.
“She talks too much about Soviet Russia”: Shoshana Milgram, “AR as a Public Speaker.”
96“This [blacklisting] lasted until The Fountainhead”: Ayn Rand and Song of Russia, p. 77.
called herself shy: “The Hero in the Soul Manifested in the World.”
lectured at the then-famous New York Town Hall Club: “Book Notes,” NYT, May 14, 1936, p. 23; “Ayn Rand to Speak Tuesday,” NYT, May 22, 1936.
“two million snow-white [Stalinist] angels”: “Ayn Rand as a Public Speaker,” quoting the New York Journal American from May 1936.
In one New York newspaper interview: “Only High Ransom for Passports Opens Border, Says Miss Ayn Rand,” New York American, June 15, 1936.
to get an affidavit of support: AR, p. 52; Binswanger, dinner lecture, April 24, 2005. A question arises here, for AR’s Chicago relatives possessed more than enough money to sponsor the whole Rosenbaum family and pay their passage, had AR asked them for help. In fact, some of them never forgave AR for not alerting them to the dire conditions her family faced in St. Petersburg (taped interview with Minna Goldberg, FB, and MS, conducted by BB, Chicago, February 20, 1983).
Soviet agents might be watching her: As far as I was able to discover, neither AR nor the Rosenbaums has a GPU or KGB file.
notorious for their ruthlessness and skill: Author interview with Bernice Rosenthal, Ph.D., July 5, 2005.
was more compelling: Later, AR would occasionally recommend filial love above truth-telling, as in an aside at a 1960s lecture.
“She lied”: Interview with BB, July 5, 2006.
fallen in love with an engineer named Fedor Drobyshev: AR, p. 45; NR was married in 1931 (100 Voices, NR, p. 7).
married and teaching in a Soviet school: AR, p. 52; Binswanger, dinner lecture, April 24, 2005.
willing to make the journey: TPOAR, p. 125.
One of the reasons: Unpublished letter to Sarah Lipton, June 4, 1936.
letters between Rand and the Rosenbaums ceased: In 1997 or 1998, AR’s youngest sister, NR, told an interviewer, “Actually, she [AR] was the one who stopped writing to us. Probably because she did not have any use for us any longer” (100 Voices, NR, p. 18). Why NR would have assumed, bitterly, in the 1930s that her émigré sister had lost interest in the family is not clear. In 1974, when the sisters were briefly reunited in New York, AR was “extremely excited,” said a friend of the time, but the reunion was a disaster. See Chapter 16.
left Sixty-sixth Street: Binswanger, dinner lecture, April 24, 2005.
where the newspaper photograph was taken: Binswanger, dinner lecture, April 24, 2005; “A New Yorker at Large,” p. 4. Sixty-six Park Avenue is now the Kitano New York hotel.
bought a set of