Elsa and her sisters were orphaned on February 1, 1956 after George Adamson was forced to kill their mother when she charged him, in defence of her three cubs. George only later realised why the lioness had acted so aggressively towards him. George and his wife Joy then adopted the four-day-old cubs...

One in particular, named Elsa, became Joy s favorite.

Elsa s two sisters were sent to zoos in Europe.

Joy was fiercely determined instead to give Elsa the education she needed to hunt and live in the wild.

And she succeeded! Elsa returned to the wild and when she was three years old, she brought three cubs of her own to show to the Adamsons.

Sadly, Elsa died prematurely of a form of babesiosis, a tick-borne blood disease similar to malaria which often infects the cat family.

Nevertheless she died mother and free!

Video : the first pics are of the real Joy Anderson and Elsa ..then you get some pics from the film.

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