Mara the Lioness Mara the Lioness Mara the Lioness is an animal actor who appeared as Elsa in the 1966 movie "Born Free", based on the true story of Elsa the Lioness raised by George and Joy Adamson. Mara was born in the wild in 1965, a premature cub abandoned by her mother during a violent rain storm. She was found lying on sodden ground, caked in mud on the plains of Masailand by Samwel, an African game scout and Larry Wateridge. Sick with hunger and in a semi coma, she was taken to a nearby coffee plantation in Kenya owned by British
George Worsley Adamson George Worsley Adamson George Worsley Adamson, RE, MCSD (7 February 1913 – 5 March 2005) was a book illustrator, writer, and cartoonist, who held American and British dual citizenship from 1931. Adamson was born in the Bronx, New York City. His parents were George William Adamson, a master car builder for the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, and Mary Lydia (Lily, née Howard). His father, born in Glasgow, Scotland, and his mother, born in Wigan, Lancashire, had moved to New York City from Bombay in 1910. Following the death of his mother in February 1921, George Adamson sailed to England with