Ayn Rand (her real name is Alice O'Connor) was a Russian-born American writer and philosopher. She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system she named Objectivism. Widely known for her work 'Atlas Shrugged'. A long-time resident of New York City, Rand, 77, was found dead in her New York City residence this morning. Her cause of death has is said to be heart failure. She is buried next to her husband at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. Rand has no survivors.
Life
Alisa Rosenbaum was born in St. Petersburg, Russia on February 5, 1905, to Zinovy Rosenbaum and Anna Borisovna, as the oldest of three siblings. She graduated from the Petrograd State University in 1924. Two years after her graduation, she moved to the United States. In the United States, she changed her name to Ayn Rand, after at Finish writer, and the Remmington Rand typewriter. In 1929, she married her husband, Frank O'Connor, who was married to her until O'Connor's death in 1979.
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Career
Rand, the writer of hits such as ‘Atlas Shrugged’ and ‘The Fountainhead’, which was also a movie directed by Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal. In the last twenty years of her life, her focus shifted to lectures and philosophical essays such as ‘For the Young Intellectual’ and ‘The Romantic Manifesto’.
Parallel to her career as a novelist, she was also a screenwriter. According to IMDb, Rand wrote the screenplays for films such as ‘Love Letters’, a 1945 film that was nominated for four Oscar awards. Before her death, Rand was working on a Television Series based on 'Atlas Shrugged'. During her time in Holywood, she worked as a screenwriter at Universal Pictures, Metro Goldwin Mayer Studios, and Paramount Pictures.
Philosophy
Throughout all of Rand's major works, Rand personified concepts including Limited Government, Laissez-Faire Capitalism, and Self Reliance. Her quote “Freedom (n.): To ask nothing. To expect nothing, To depend on nothing”, from her novel, 'The Fountainhead', was an accurate representation of her philosophical views. Rand credited many of her ideological principals to Aristotle and Plato, two of the most acclaimed Greek philosophers.
Rand once said, in simple terms, that her philosophy was based on the ideals of moral purpose, heroism, and productive achievement. During the 1970's she traveled around the country, speaking at universities as well as economic and political events. Her last public appearance was in New Orleans, Lousiana, four months ago for the National Committee for Monetary Reform.