In the early 1980s, Tippi Hedren and her daughter – actress Melanie Griffith (who appears in a number of these images) – filmed the fraught-with-danger film ‘Roar’ documenting the lives of a dozen or so African lions. The film cost $17 million dollars to make (which was a boatload back then) and several of its stars/crew were attacked by the lions during filming.
Despite those nasty dramas, Tippi would not be perturbed. She wanted to make lions, and wild animals in general, her life.
In 1983 she established the Shambala Preserve in California’s Mojave Desert and The Roar Foundation. Go Tippi. Not content with housing 70+ creatures in this reserve, she also adopted thecolourful Anton LaVey’s lion Togar after San Francisco officials decided a lion wasn’t an appropriate house pet. Tippi had other ideas and these photos show that lions really can be house pets. Gulp! She also now cares for Michael Jackson’s Bengal Tigers.
