I sin bok ”That was LIFE, från 1977 skriver Dora Jane Hamblin: ”When Birgit went back to Sweden for the premiere of a role she intended later to sing at the Metropolitan Opera in Manhattan, a picture assignment editor asked Lennart to cover her Stockholm opening. For a day or so there was silence. Then came a cablegram, Wagnerian in its outrage, from that great Wagnerian, Birgit.

‘Lennart Nilsson, no kin, ‘ it said (Birgit had picked up Time Inc. style during her years in New York), not only wants to photograph me at the opera house, he also wants me to swallow that little camera to photograph my vocal cords. This I will not do because I know where it has been.‘ Signed Birgit Nilsson. ”