Ayn Rand

AKA:

Alice O'Connor

Birth Name:

Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum

Birth Date:

February 2, 1905

Birth Place:

Saint Petersburg, Russian

Death Date:

March 6, 1982

Place of Death:

1 20 East 34th Street, Apartment 6G, New York City, New York

Age:

Cause of Death:

Heart failure

Cemetery Name:

Kensico Cemetery

Claim to Fame:

Writers and Poets

Ayn Rand escaped to the United States, where she would eventually publish four novels and a handful of political screeds encouraging selfishness and a lack of concern for others. After the release of her third novel The Fountainhead, Rand began to attract young followers. Few authors have influenced the alt-right more than Russian-American cult leader Ayn Rand. Rand is best known for her fourth novel Atlas Shrugged: a story about how rich industrialist super-humans should wipe out the ordinary mortals and bring about a paradise just for selfish people who like all the same things as Ayn Rand. The problem is that Atlas Shrugged has had a profound influence on a lot of powerful people, who spend their lives trying to dismantle the institutions that vulnerable people depend on to survive. Objectivism teaches that the rich should be free to do whatever they want, no matter how many people get hurt. Later in life she lost her husband to the ravages of alcoholism (a habit born out of Ayn openly cheating with a younger man) and was hemorrhaging money due to cancer surgery and a 30-year addiction to amphetamines. So it came as no surprise when she asked her lawyer to secure social security and Medicare payments using her legal name of Alice O'Connor. That's right - in her own words her books provided wide-ranging parables of "parasites," "looters" and "moochers" using the levers of government to steal the fruits of her heroes' labor. In the real world, however, Rand herself received Social Security payments and Medicare benefits under the name of Ann O'Connor (her husband was Frank O'Connor).

Fun Facts

If you thought Ayn Rand books were schlock-filled dreck, if you can get past the low budget, no-name actors and the retched screen play – then you will really love the movies.

Rand’s first English language novel, which was never completed, depicted a hero based on a Los Angeles multiple murderer named William Hickman, who, among other things, kidnapped, murdered, and dismembered a twelve-year-old girl in the most horrifically gruesome way imaginable. Rand was impressed by Hickman’s demeanor and had a crush on him.

Surrounded by devotees who worshipped at her feet, Ayn Rand became convinced that anyone who disagreed with her about literally anything—for example, someone who didn’t share her preference for Rachmaninoff over Mozart or vanilla ice cream over chocolate ice cream—was evil and deserved to die.

Cemetery Information:

Final Resting Place:

Kensico Cemetery

273 Lakeview Avenue

Valhalla, New York, 10595

USA

North America

Map:

Map of Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York

Grave Location:

Section 41, Grave 3A3

Grave Location Description

As you enter the cemetery drive towards the middle and stop at the intersection of Ossipee Avenue and Cherokee Avenue. Walk up the hill directly opposite of Ossipee Avenue and you will find the graves of Ayn Rand and her husband Charles Francis “Frank” O’Connor (which is 100 feet to the left of big band musician Tommy Dorsey).