Another Unfact about Tolkien

So, last night I came across another of those odd claims people make about J. R. R. Tolkien from time to time.  This time it was that JRRT was a friend of Christopher Lee. I'd heard or seen somewhere that Lee was a Tolkien fan from way back who had gotten THE HOBBIT when it was first published, but this degree of contact between the two seemed inherently unlikely.

First off, the venue in which this claim was made is not a promising one.

It comes from the packaging accompanying a cheap compilation of three old horror movies on one dvd (one featuring Vincent Price, one Bela Lugosi, and one Christopher Lee) that I'd bought because the third of these had been the inspiration for a good CALL OF CTHULHU scenario from Pagan P. and I wanted to see how much it owned to its source and how much to their treatment of it. I bought this ten years ago and never opened till now (having in the meantime found a single dvd with the one movie I wanted on it and watched that copy instead, while this copy drifted to a back-shelf until my current watch-and-get-rid-of-phase. Having watched one and skimmed another of the two films I hadn't seen before, I've already added this to the discard/giveaway pile.

Second, there's the actual claim, which is given (under the header VESTIGES FROM THE VINTAGE WAULT) as one of a number of bullet points/ paragraphs of THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THESE CLASSIC FILMS . . . UNTIL NOW! , followed by factoids about Price, Legosi, and Lee, the relevant one of which reads


Christopher Lee
was a friend and
student/historian of
J. R. R. Tolkien long
before portraying the
role of Saruman in 
Peter Jackson's "Lord Of
The Rings" films.

As for the truth of the matter: according to The Source of All Knowledge (a.k.a. wikipedia), Lee in his 2003 autobiography says he once met Tolkien. I haven't yet tracked down a copy of the book to see if there's any more than that, but it's clear that they didn't really know each other. So, a Tolkien fan: Yes. A personal acquaintance, No.


So, a minor point, but it's good to point out 'facts' that aren't when opportunity arises. 
There's a lot of disinformation out there, and reducing its impact is a Good Thing.

--John R.