In honor of the 122nd birthday of J. R. R. Tolkien, here is a fascinating quote from his Letters (letter 267) concerning a chance meeting following a lecture by Prof. Robert Graves:
Ava Gardner (as herself) in the 1953 MGM musical The Band Wagon.
After it [Prof. Graves] 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 . . . . .
Morning at the Brown Brink 