Barbara Branden on the Passion of Ayn Rand

Arguably, no two people were closer to Ayn Rand than Barbara and Nathaniel Branden, whom Rand once named as her "intellectual heir." Indeed, when the Brandens married in 1953, the author served as bridesmaid (Rand had also urged the pair to wed).

A decade later, the Brandens would collaborate on the first biography of Rand, Who Is Ayn Rand? In 1986, Barbara published a second biography, The Passion of Ayn Rand, which eventually was made into an award-winning Showtime movie starring Helen Mirren.

Despite the ruinous and controversial romantic affair between Rand and Nathaniel Branden and her eventual ouster from Rand's inner circle, Barbara still feels fondly for the author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. As Branden, now 80, recalls in this Reason.tv interview, "I felt like she's answering questions that I've been looking for answers for, and nobody's been giving me any sort of answer until now."

Approximately seven minutes. Interview by Seth Goldin, camera by Alex Manning, and editing by Hawk Jensen.

This is part of the Reason.tv series Radicals For Capitalism: Celebrating the Ideas of Ayn Rand.


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