Mara the Lioness the movie "Born Free") the only lion. By 1965 the park held 117 orphans of 36 species including lion, leopard, cheetahs, african buffalo, camels, hyena, jackal and wild dogs. It took many months for Mara to settle into her new home where she was affectionately known as the "friendly lioness". The Grindlays, as self-appointed guardians, remained in frequent contact. Mara had only been in the Animal Orphanage for about six months when the "Born Free" film crew arrived. They were looking for lionesses to play the part of Elsa and decided that Mara would make an ideal adult Elsa. Seventeen
Joy Adamson her grandmother. In her autobiography "The Searching Spirit", Adamson wrote about her grandmother, saying, "It is to her I owe anything that may be good in me". She grew up on an estate near Vienna, was educated in Vienna earning a music degree before studying sculpting and medicine. As a young adult, Adamson considered careers as a concert pianist, and in medicine. Joy Adamson married three times in the span of ten years. Her first marriage was to Viktor von Klarwill (aka Ziebel; 1902-1985). She went to Kenya in 1937 where she met and married in 1938 the botanist Peter