Elsa the lioness Elsa the lioness Elsa the lioness ( 28 January 195624 January 1961) was a female lion raised along with her sisters "Big One" and "Lustica" by game warden George Adamson and his wife Joy Adamson after they were orphaned at only a few weeks old. Though her two sisters eventually went to the Netherlands' Rotterdam Zoo, Elsa was trained by the Adamsons to survive on her own, and was eventually released into the wild. Her story is told in several books by the Adamsons, as well as the 1966 motion picture "Born Free". Elsa and her sisters were orphaned on
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