Ayn Rand and the World She Made - Anne C. Heller [39]
There is a famous story about Ayn Rand’s first meeting with the great film director Cecil B. DeMille. On her second day in Hollywood, the story goes, she was standing forlornly in the sunbaked parking lot of the DeMille Studios, having just been turned down for a job, in spite of the letter of introduction that she carried in her purse. Suddenly, a long, low, open-topped touring car pulled to a stop beside her, driven by DeMille. He asked her who she was. When she answered that she was a recent Russian immigrant looking for a job, he told her to get in. She did, and the two drove off to the Culver City set of King of Kings, DeMille’s epic drama of the life and death of Christ. There, over the next few weeks, he instructed her in the fundamentals of filmmaking technique—the proper angle of the camera, the dramatic focus of a set—while employing her as an extra in the teeming Palm Sunday and crucifixion scenes. Within days, she had picked out a toga-clad Roman legionnaire who looked uncannily like Cyrus and whom she made up her mind to marry.
There are several versions of this story. In one, the Russian girl accepted a ride with the great director without knowing who he was, and found out only when, on the road, she worked up the nerve to ask his name. In another, she saw him before he saw her; she recognized him from publicity photographs she had seen in movie magazines in Russia and stared at him in wonder until he pulled up in his car and offered her a ride. People who knew her imagine that the episode may have unfolded in yet another way. “She stalked him,” Fern Brown exclaimed, only half in jest, adding, “She never left a thing to chance.” “That would be like her,” said an acquaintance from the 1960s.
In any case, during her first few weeks in Hollywood she met with exceptional good fortune, both through her encounter with DeMille and in other ways. Her Chicago relatives had suggested she stay at the YWCA, and on the day of her arrival she rode a streetcar to the Los Angeles branch. When she explained to the duty clerk that she had come all the way from Russia to be a screenwriter, she later said, he steered her to the much more proper and delightful Hollywood Studio Club—an inexpensive Y-sponsored residence created specifically to shelter aspiring actresses and other young women away from home for the first time. Regularly oversubscribed, the club had recently moved into brand-new quarters on Lodi Place, in the heart of Hollywood. There, residents had use of a well-stocked library, a small rehearsal theater, a gymnasium, and a beautifully planted courtyard for the Tuesday evening tea dances that were a club tradition. Even in its new, larger quarters, however, there was typically a waiting list. Since Mrs. Cecil B. DeMille sat on the board of directors and had led the five-year building drive, it’s possible that DeMille helped Rand secure a room a day or two after they met, as he later claimed he did, although why she would want to obscure this fact, if true, isn’t apparent. The Studio Club, a palace of safety and ease compared to her family’s cramped rooms in St. Petersburg, became a haven. She remained there for two and a half years, paying ten dollars a week for her room, with breakfast and dinner included.
Thus comfortably settled, and employed by DeMille, she wrote to her parents for the first time and told them her new first name. The family was immensely pleased to hear of her progress. Her mother wrote back to say that she had read Rand’s letter describing her remarkable meeting with Cecil B. DeMille aloud to gathered relatives and got a standing ovation. She and the younger girls were practicing English at home, in preparation for someday joining Ayn. Nora sent a separate letter, rejoicing in her belief that Rand’s new name would one day be “the embodiment of the world’s glory and glamour.”
In 1926, the Hollywood film studios