Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Ayn Rand Fun Facts!

I realize it looks like I'm stalling on reading Atlas Shrugged... but hey, check out these Ayn Rand Fun Facts! Wow was she a nasty person!

Here are some of the funnest facts. The first one provides an explanation for what my Ayn Rand-loving Libertarian former co-worker told me (and our entire department via company email) - that Farrah Fawcett was considered for the role of Dagny Taggart in an early planned version of "Atlas Shrugged."



Ayn Rand Fun Fact # 20

One of Rand’s favorite television shows was Charlie’s Angels. She said it was a  ”triumph of concept and casting.” Rand described Angels as “uniquely American,” but said it differed from all other shows because it depicted true “romanticism” (as defined by Aristotle as “not…things as they are, but…things as they might be and ought to be”). Farrah was Rand’s favorite Angel; she wanted her to play Dagny if Atlas Shrugged were ever made into a movie. The fondness was mutual. Shortly before her death, Farrah called Ayn Rand a “literary genius.”


Ayn Rand Fun Fact # 37

Rand really didn’t get jokes. An example:

An acquaintance, to Rand: “Two fellows were sitting down at the end of [a] bar. And one said, ‘My God, you see those two women coming across the street? One’s my wife and the other is my mistress.’ The other guy said, ‘You took the words right out of my mouth!’”

Rand: “What an extraordinary coincidence.”

Ayn Rand Fun Fact # 41

When two of Rand’s Objectivist followers in the “Collective” got married, they included in the ceremony vows pledging their “joint devotion and fealty to Ayn Rand.” Also part of what had to be the worst wedding ever, they read to one another from the “sacred text” Atlas Shrugged.


Ayn Rand Fun Fact # 48

When Gentry International wanted to make a movie of Atlas Shrugged, Rand agreed on the condition that they get Rod Serling to write the screenplay. Gentry brought the proposition to Serling, and “Serling simply laughed—his laugh getting louder and longer the more he pondered it.”


NOTE: The fun facts blog also includes tidbits of Rand's sex life, but I was too skeeved out to repost them here. Go there at your own risk.