I’m sorry, I’m going to borrow material from The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien again. Just one more anecdote, I promise you. I think it’s too good to keep to myself – but then I’m a pathetic name-dropper (when I have a name to drop, which is rarely).

Anyway, here’s an story Tolkien relates in a January 9, 1965 letter to his son Michael:

An amusing incident occurred in November, when I went as a courtesy to hear the last lecture of this series of his given by the Professor of Poetry: Robert Graves…. It was the most ludicrously bad lecture I have ever heard. After it he introduced me to a pleasant young woman who had attended it: well but quietly dressed, easy and agreeable, and we got on quite well. But Graves started to laugh; and he said: ‘it is obvious neither of you has ever heard of the other before’. Quite true. And I had not supposed that the lady would ever have heard of me. Her name was Ava Gardner, but it still meant nothing, till people more aware of the world informed me that she was a film-star of some magnitude; and that the press of pressmen and storm of flash-bulbs on the steps of the Schools were not directed at Graves (and cert. not at me) but at her….

Robert Graves was, of course, the author of I, Claudius and various other stuff. Tolkien doesn’t seem to have respected him much, but I’ve omitted his personal comments.