Timeline

One woman. One movement. One head. One destiny.

October 31, 1952: After the debacle at the San Jose Hilton, Rand becomes despondant. Her doctor decides she is not famous enough at this point in her career to be prescribed potentially addictive tranquilizers, and instead sarcastically suggests she return to her first love: musical theatre.

Perpetually blind to sarcasm, Rand takes the advice seriously, and moves to New York City to follow her dream. Her near-total tone-deafness and lead hip (the result of several nasty car accidents) prove that even notoriety can be insufficient to launch a career in acting -- until she meets the truly desperate producers of Factory! The Musical, drunk and sobbing in a bar.

A wacky musical comedy about love between a union-busting factory owner and the union-hating daughter of the union president, Factory! The Musical had been condemned mercilessly by nearly the entirety of humanity. Reviews were scathing; audiences refused to attend, even when given free tickets and rotting tomatoes by The Vegetable Marketing Board; the Mayor was being lobbied by a Committee of Concerned Citizens to ban the production by special proclamation. Senator Joseph McCarthy announced his intention (never followed through) to investigate the producers, on suspicion of "using their crappy little play to promote the Communistic ideals of their masters."

Drunk, despairing, burning through what little patience New York City has, and hungry for any positive publicity at all, the producers hire Rand on the spot for a walk-on cameo as herself. Her dialogue is quickly written as they sober up from a thirty-six hour bender, and rashly includes a song based on her preliminary notes for John Galt's three-hour lecture in Atlas Shrugged, as well as a kung-fu high-kick dance routine. They announce to the world Rand's new role; no one seems to care. The Leader cares, though, and asks his editor to send him to see the revamped version. Since he doesn't like The Leader much, he agrees.

The Leader sits open-mouthed and enraptured throughout the play, but manages to hide his bubbling enthusiasm in order to do a bit of horse-trading. Disguised as an bouquet-offering, autograph-seeking Objectivist nerd, he makes his way to Rand's dressing room after the performance in order to make his introduction. The meeting, though cut short by the necessity of getting his review submitted before the presses roll, is a success: Rand agrees to place her head in the care of A=A, and The Leader agrees to give her a good review in his job as an on-call New York Times drama critic.

Printed anonymously after The Leader fakes his editor's signature approving it, the review is immediately condemned in letters to the editor. The other six members of the audience that night offer affidavits describing Rand's performance as "weak," "wooden," "painful to watch" and "hopelessly amateur;" one threatens a lawsuit against the anonymous reviewer for "needlessly re-inflicted pain and suffering." (During the 1997 Edmonton Theatre Co.'s revival of Factory!, Keanu Reeve's performance as Ayn Rand was compared favourably to Rand's own in the original production.)

In an out-of-court settlement of the threatened lawsuit, the New York Times fires The Leader. He swears revenge, beginning a pattern of behaviour that will repeat itself many, many times.