Neal(VI)
- Actor
Hollywood actress Tippi Hedren has revealed her embarrassment and regret that she let a fully grown lion live with her family in the 1970s, saying they were 'stupid beyond belief' to let the beast play with her daughter Melanie Griffth, then aged just 13.
In pictures taken for LIFE magazine, the Lion - named Neil - can be seen relaxing by the family's pool, lounging in Melanie's bed and becoming a distraction in the office.
But Hedren has revealed that looking back she finds the pictures humiliating and admits she 'should never have taken those risks'.
'I cringe when I see those pictures now,' she told me this week. 'I have to tell you we were stupid beyond belief. We should never have taken those risks. These animals are so fast, and if they decide to go after you, nothing but a bullet to the brain will stop them.'
Although she stresses now that his trainer, Ron Oxley was always shadowing his animal, Hedren writes in her memoirs of how their 'first live-in lion' had 'no room off limits to him'.
He loved to sleep on Melanie's bed, she writes, and 'one night I went down to find them both asleep, side by side'. Neil's mouth was no more than two feet from her daughter's body, she recalled, adding: 'It was a sight some mothers might not relish.'
In pictures taken for LIFE magazine, the Lion - named Neil - can be seen relaxing by the family's pool, lounging in Melanie's bed and becoming a distraction in the office.
But Hedren has revealed that looking back she finds the pictures humiliating and admits she 'should never have taken those risks'.
'I cringe when I see those pictures now,' she told me this week. 'I have to tell you we were stupid beyond belief. We should never have taken those risks. These animals are so fast, and if they decide to go after you, nothing but a bullet to the brain will stop them.'
Although she stresses now that his trainer, Ron Oxley was always shadowing his animal, Hedren writes in her memoirs of how their 'first live-in lion' had 'no room off limits to him'.
He loved to sleep on Melanie's bed, she writes, and 'one night I went down to find them both asleep, side by side'. Neil's mouth was no more than two feet from her daughter's body, she recalled, adding: 'It was a sight some mothers might not relish.'
