O'Hair really is an interesting minor historical figure and also probably was the worst spokesperson American atheism possibly could have had, at least after the death of Jim Jones. She at one point attempted to defect to the Soviet Union because she approved of its official state atheism (which included brutal persecution of Christians, of course.) The Soviets rejected her, having been burned by western militant-atheist defectors before, like the Jonestown crew and of course, Lee Harvey Oswald. She also deliberately antagonized members of the media and publicly disowned her son when he converted to Christianity.

You have never heard of Madalyn Murray O'Hair?

Okay, think of the movie version of The Blue Lagoon. It doesn't work as a "love story," because with only one boy and one girl on the island, they don't have any alternative. They wind up in a sexual relationship by default, not because the boy has to compete with other boys to seduce the girl.

In Madalyn's case, no one else wanted to become the country's public face of atheism, so she managed to step into that role without having to push anyone else out of the way. And she managed to draw attention to herself afterwards because she lacked social anxiety and she said and did outrageous things which made her news-worthy, like filing harassing lawsuits against local governments for alleged breaches of church-state separation. Her boldness didn't make her especially effective or look very competent. Instead many other atheists considered her a buffoon.