When a film is made, the first take is usually the best. I hope this applies to books too, because after discarding 17 bright descriptions of the way I made my very first entrance, on Saturday, May 27, 1922, I've decided to print the one I first thought of. I wish I could use the marvellous booming phrase that I heard from Orson Welles on the only occasion he ever directed me in a film, and "print - with enthusiasm!" But the truth is that neither I nor this book would ever have come about if nature had paid any heed to the convenience of my parents. I was "a mistake". My mother often told me so.

(Christopher Lee, 'Tall, Dark and Gruesome', 1977)

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