By Matt Schudel December 9 at 7:59 PM <\/p>\n
Nathaniel Branden, who became a chief disciple and lover of the writer and libertarian lodestar Ayn Rand until a turbulent falling out led to his new career as a best-selling writer of books on self-esteem, died Dec. 3 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 84. <\/p>\n
He had complications from Parkinsons disease, said his assistant, Vivian Buentiempo-Johnson. <\/p>\n
Mr. Branden was a 19-year-old college student in California in 1950 when he sent a note to Rand, the author of his favorite novel, The Fountainhead. She invited him for coffee. <\/p>\n
I reached for the doorbell, Mr. Branden later wrote in a 1989 memoir, knowing without words and with irresistible certainty that nothing was ever going to be the same again. <\/p>\n
He talked with Rand and her husband, Frank OConnor, through the night and didnt leave their house until 5:30 the next morning. He soon became part of Rands inner circle and one of her fiercest advocates. He changed his name from Nathan Blumenthal to Nathaniel Branden, deliberately incorporating Rand into his new surname. <\/p>\n
After moving to New York, Mr. Branden and his young wife, Barbara, became devoted acolytes of the Russian-born Rand. The Fountainhead (1943) and another of her novels, Atlas Shrugged (1957), became seminal texts of an emerging school of thought that emphasized muscular notions of laissez-faire capitalism, self-interest and rational egoism, which might be described best by the title of another of Rands books: The Virtue of Selfishness (1964). <\/p>\n
Rand scorned anything reeking of the communism she had seen during her youth in Russia. She was an outspoken opponent of taxes and welfare, which later followers made articles of faith in certain conservative and libertarian circles. <\/p>\n
Mr. Branden helped develop Rands ideas into a philosophical construct that became known as objectivism. He organized meetings of Rands supporters in the 1950s, including Alan Greenspan, who later became chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. In 1958, Mr. Branden launched the Nathaniel Branden Institute, which presented seminars on Rands ideas around the world. <\/p>\n
Mr. Branden was 24 when he and the 49-year-old Rand began an affair in 1954. Rand insisted that each of their spouses know of the relationship, but otherwise it was kept secret. <\/p>\n
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Nathaniel Branden, lover and disciple of novelist Ayn Rand, dies at 84<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Matt Schudel December 9 at 7:59 PM Nathaniel Branden, who became a chief disciple and lover of the writer and libertarian lodestar Ayn Rand until a turbulent falling out led to his new career as a best-selling writer of books on self-esteem, died Dec. 3 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 84. Continue reading