"When I was your age… I’d probably gotten a little too old for the Hardy Boys and that stuff," Obama told Topanga Sena, 10, of Orlando, Florida, and Jacob Schroeder, 11, of Albuquerque, New Mexico. "I think I was getting into the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit and stuff like that."

"They weren’t just kind of adventure stories but they were stories that taught me about social problems," Obama said of the books he favored in his pre-teen years. "Taught me about how people interact with each other…about how some people are kind and some people are cruel."

In the eary 1970s, the Queen was inspired to illustrate The Lord of the Rings. She sent her illustrations to Tolkien, who was struck by the similarity to the style of his own drawings. In 1977, Queen Margrethe's drawings were published in the Danish translation of the book (Ringenes Herre, edition by publishers Gyldendal; one illustration for each chapter), redrawn by the British artist Eric Fraser.

Under the pseudonym Ingahild Grathmer her illustrations were also featured in a British edition of The Lord of the Rings, published by HarperCollins and The Folio Society. Queen Margrethe gave permission to use her illustrations in the CD layouts for the musical interpretation of the poems and songs from The Lord of the Rings by the Danish music group The Tolkien Ensemble.

“The Prince is a great fan of children’s literature and Tolkien is one of the great icons of children’s literature,” said a royal source. “He and the Duchess have seen Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films and the Prince has said he is very much looking forward to seeing Bilbo Baggins’s foot.”

Freeman, who portrays Bilbo Baggins in director Peter Jackson's adaptations of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic book, met the royal at the premiere of the first film, An Unexpected Journey, in 2012, and was shocked with how much William knew about the story.

He tells Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper, "He was a nice guy. He is the biggest royal fan. We have fans everywhere, it is a very beloved book... He knew all the facts about Middle Earth and I think I kept him talking too long. You know the protocol, you have got to let them say what they want to say and let them move on but I think I was boring him a little bit as I held onto him, talking about Middle Earth."

Árpád Göncz wrote that The Lord of the Rings:”serves as a positive role model in our dehumanized world as well as an exciting lecture […] it helped transform our world into one smiling global village”.

Stephen Colbert developed a love of science fiction and fantasy novels, especially the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, of which he remains an avid fan. J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings story will often show through in the Report. However, Colbert tries to limit references to The Lord of the Rings because he says, as a fan, he does not want to "debase" Tolkien's work by having his character like it. One thing is certain he loves to show his amazing The Lord of the Rings collectables.

During James Franco's appearance on The Colbert Report he managed to get into an intense argument with Stephen Colbert over who had been the bigger fan of The Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien growing up.

He has a huge respect for the author Tolkien as you can read in the following quote:

"What Professor Tolkien achieved is unique in the literature of my lifetime. Indeed, in my opinion, he had reached the peak of literary invention of all time. Nothing like it has ever existed, and probably never will."

Next to this Christopher Lee became an active participant, both as narrator and singer, at the album and concerts of The Tolkien Ensemble. Of all famous people Christopher Lee is probably the biggest Tolkien fan of all!

"I thought what Viggo did was terrific," Cage told MTV in an interview after the film was released. And that's about all he thought. "I just want to think about his character. I don't think about what I would've done," he added.

In Empire magazine of May 2010 we can read Nicolas Cage tell abou this favorite moment from the movie:

"I'm a huge fan of Lord Of The Rings. And I think the moment when Gollum goes into the river of fire and becomes an unlikely hero is the most profound. When that happens, and evil and good combine to save the world, that's the most philosophically interesting moment of the whole trilogy."

She said: "[Fans] complain that Frodo is eating the Lembas bread outside of Mordor instead of the in the Mines of Moria. And they get really mad. You cannot focus completely on pleasing them because you'll never win. They'll never be happy no matter what you do."

"I think the scene that blew me away and was probably a causal link to Avatar getting made, at least in the short term, was the scene where Gollum debates with himself what he should do. His schizophrenic fugue state was so beautifully realised, not only as a concept for a scene, but in terms of the execution and the fact that it was such a milestone in performance-capture CG. I was blown away by that scene and when there was talk about Andy Serkis getting an Oscar nomination for that role, I thought it was completely valid. It's a great performance."

During some interviews at several cons we learned that is was this exaxt scene that pushed James Cameron to work further on Avatar. He has also stated that with Avatar he wanted to compete with Star Wars and Tolkien. While we know James Cameron has an enormous respect for Peter Jackson, we can probably add him to the list of Tolkien fans, while he will probably never say this himself. One thing is certain he sees the current work on The Hobbit movies as an extra push to work harder and take our cinema experience to the next level!

Of course football players are never interviewed about their passion for Tolkien and so we have to learn it from other sources.

On fourfourtwo Dominic Monaghan says

"I’ve become a good friend of Ruud van Nistlerooy, too, who was a big fan of Lord of the Rings, and when Elijah and me turned up at United’s U.S. tour last year, he asked to meet up with us and we went with the players to a party at Venice Beach. I’ve kept in touch with Ruud since then and we exchange e-mails from time to time, so it doesn't feel like I'm so far away."

Dominic Monaghan even owns a Manchester United shirt with "Hobbit" printed on the back, which was presented to him by former Manchester United striker Ruud Van Nistelrooy.

He is not the only soccer player with an Elvish tattoe like this, for example Argentinian Sergio Agüero has his nickname Kun Agüero written in Elvish on his right arm.

One of his famous quotes is:"My favourite all-time work of fiction: Lord of the Rings. My favourite all-time nonfiction book: Guns, Germs, and Steel. Ask me again next week, you'll get a different answer."

One thing is certain, for me Orson Scott Card's books is the next best thing after Tolkien and he for sure likes Tolkien as much as I do!

In a letter written to Charlotte and Denis Plimmer in 1967, Tolkien said that he seldom found any modern books that could hold his attention. One exception though was the science fiction of Isaac Asimov, which Tolkien said he enjoyed.

In an interview conducted in 1988, Asimov said that he "likes" Tolkien and that he has "read it five times" (likely referring to The Lord of the Rings).

As strange as it sounds, John Lennon was once pushing for a Beatles version of "Lord of the Rings." McCartney said, "John wanted us to buy the film rights to Lord of the Rings. It was very much his idea." The Beatles version would have had John Lennon playing the grasping, thieving creature Gollum, Paul McCartney as the hero Frodo, George Harrison as the wise wizard Gandalf and Ringo Starr playing Frodo’s devoted sidekick Sam. The Beatles plan fell flat when the author J.R.R. Tolkien, who still had the film rights, rejected the idea of the Beatles doing it.

Robert Plant was so much influenced by J. R. R. Tolkien's books that it inspired lyrics in some early Led Zeppelin songs, most notably "The Battle of Evermore", "Misty Mountain Hop", "No Quarter", "Ramble On" and "Over the Hills and Far Away" contain verses referencing Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

There are always discussions whether Robert Plant did really read a lot of Tolkien but I know some other people who named their dogs or even children after characters from Tolkien's books and they all share one common thing: a love for Tolkien.

"He was a huge fan of Lord of the Rings," says Scott. "He was a huge romantic, he loved the forces of good against the forces of evil. He took Richard Taylor and Peter Jackson aside and said 'I’ve been a little despondent about the future of New Zealand, but today’s been an absolute tonic. You’ve made me confident in New Zealand’s future'."

One source who claims to be close to Thiel says there's an in-joke about his venture-capital firm, the Founders Fund, being nicknamed "The Precious."

Thiel also runs Valar Ventures, an early-stage venture-capital firm focused on overseas investments. And he recently started Mithril Capital Management, a growth fund. In 2004, Thiel cofounded Palantir, a maker of information-analysis tools used by corporations and government agencies.

He is the author of "My Favorite War," and is working on his second novel set in the 19th century in Jamaica.

During the celebration for the 75th Anniversary was interviewed on Lunch Break Live at The Wall Street Journal and turned out a big fan with quit a big knowledge on all things Tolkien.

Gwendolyn (Wendy) Bounds is anchor of The Wall Street Journal's daily noon news & lifestyle show "Lunch Break." She is also host and Managing Editor of WSJ's "Off Duty" channel on YouTube.