Long before 'Tiger King', Tippi Hedren adopted 400lb lion and got obsessed with big cats as she prepared to film 'Roar'
Long before the world gained knowledge of the world of big cat obsession and private ownership of wild and exotic animals through Netflix's presently-viral docu-series, 'Tiger King', there existed a "lion queen" who lived with a 400-pound pet lion in her Beverly Hills home — actress Tippi Hedren.
Although Hedren, now 90, has dedicated her life to advocating for laws that ban private ownership of big cats, she herself was the owner of a lion named "Neil" which lived with her and her daughter, actress Melanie Griffith.
The big cat also featured in the celebrated 1971 LIFE Magazine spread, which Hedren now admits was a naive decision and "stupid beyond belief." She had said that every time she looked at the array of pictures featuring the nine-foot-long lion, she cringes, Daily Mail reported
The nonagenarian might be most famous for starring in Alfred Hitchcock's 'The Birds', but she will go down in history for acting in the infamous 1983 adventure film 'Roar' with her then 13-year-old daughter, which is now touted as "the most dangerous film ever made."
At the time Hedren said that she was inspired to make the film after visiting a wildlife preserve. And while shooting for the movie in Africa, her love for big cats began, which slowly grew into a lifelong obsession.
The film, which was written and directed by Hedren's then-husband, Noel Marshall, featured 150 lethal lions, tigers, jaguars, leopards, panthers, cheetahs, cougars, and tigons, many of which Hedren had helped raise from cubs. "No animals were harmed during the making of 'Roar'. But 70 members of the cast and crew were," the film's tagline said.
The film was the brainchild of both Hedren and Marshall. "Who exactly did we think we were to risk all these lives — our crew's, our animals, ours, and most of all, our children's — for what really amounted to nothing more than a very, very expensive home movie?" wrote Hedren in 'Tippi: A Memoir.'
They decided to have their own pride of big cats because it was not feasible to create the wild cast of 'Roar' with other people's cats. "Single-mindedness? Stubbornness? Headstrong determination? Sheer insanity? We didn't know, and we didn't stop to analyze it," wrote Hedren.
On the advice of Ron Oxley, a veteran animal trainer in Los Angeles, Hedren adopted Neil and began living with him in order to understand a lion's behavior.
"My lifelong assumption that big cats were, in the end, nothing more than beautiful, vicious predators was starting to erode. They were infinitely complex creatures, far more extraordinary than I'd ever realized, and the more I learned about them, the more I wanted to learn," she wrote.
She added later on in the memoir, "I didn't learn until many years later how naive and stupid we were. I was so caught up in the thrill, the awe, the challenge, the passion, and the prospect of making our movie and sharing my life with these magnificent wild animals that my logic went right out the window."
After they started to raise as many as over 100 big cats for their movie, they had to buy a 40-acre ranch in Soledad Canyon, to house the animals. The shooting of the film, which included 132 of the cats that they had raised apart from a host of other wild animals, ended up spanning over six years, although it was supposed to be wrapped up by nine months.
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Hedren sustained multiple horrific injuries during the filming of 'Roar'. Her scalp was gashed open by a tiger who bit into her head. "I don't have words to describe the sound echoing inside my head as her teeth scraped against my skull, but it haunted me for a long time," she wrote.
Next, she had to endure skin graft surgery on her leg which was mangled by a rogue elephant and was later infected with black gangrene. Also, her daughter, Melanie, who was just a teenager at the time, almost lost an eye after a lion tried to mauled her face. She required 50 stitches and extensive facial reconstructive surgery. Marshall was hospitalized in critical condition for three weeks after he got sepsis from a tiger bite on his hand.
A massive number of crew members resigned after having near-death experiences and refused to work under such dangerous circumstances. The film ended up costing $17 million and was ultimately a theatrical flop leaving Hedren and Marshall in financial ruin. The couple divorced shortly after.
In the years that passed, the Soledad Canyon ranch was turned into an animal preserve that Hedren named Shambala. She also established the non-profit Roar Foundation in 1983 to help take care of the exotic animals which starred in the film and continue to live in the preserve.
Meanwhile, Hedren is devoted to educating the public about the dangers of private ownership of exotic pets. "They shouldn’t be pets. They’re apex predators, top of the food chain, one of four of the most dangerous animals in the world," she explained.