Let’s move to Bray Studios, they said. That way if Sir Christopher Lee decides to lodge a protest from the afterlife, he’ll show up in Victorian evening wear instead of wizard’s robes, they said.

(On a related note, the idea that J.R.R.Tolkien “gave Lee permission” to play Gandalf is nonsense. Lee met Tolkien once, at a pub, having been introduced by some Oxford students who were friends of Lee’s and acquaintances of Tolkien’s. By the only account of this event I’ve ever seen attributed to Lee, greetings were exchanged, and it didn’t go further than that. The urban legend above seems to be based on an older, better attested story about Ian Fleming, Lee’s cousin-by-marriage, trying to recommend him for the role of Dr. No on the strength of Terror of the Tongs and Lee’s early Fu Manchu movies.)