12. Tippi Hedren kept lions as pets for a time
Tippi Hedren starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic The Birds, Marnie, and several other films. She is the mother of actress Melanie Griffith. In 1969 she was filming in Africa when the actress and her then-husband witnessed a pride of lions take over occupancy of an abandoned house. The incident gave them the idea for a motion picture project, which led to them adopting several lion cubs and taking them into their home in Sherman Oaks, California. The first cub, a male, was named Neil by the couple, and Tippi treated the lion as a house cat, playing with it, sleeping with it, and drawing the complaints of neighbors who protested over the presence of a dangerous animal.
Eventually, Tippi and her husband purchased a ranch on which several lions, as well as other big cats, were given sanctuary. The film project, which took over seven years to complete, was one of the most dangerous ever produced for the workers on the film. None of the animals were injured, but over seventy members of the film crew required medical attention as a result of interaction with the lions and other animals, including Tippi herself and her daughter, Melanie Griffith, who was mauled badly enough to require fifty stitches. Tippi later told the Daily Mail, “We were stupid beyond belief to have that lion in our house”.