Elsa the lioness cubs. 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
Born Free released in 1969. The film follows "Born Free"-actor Bill Travers as he journeys to a remote area in Kenya to visit George Adamson, and several of Adamson's lion friends. In 1974, a 13-episode American television series was broadcast by NBC, entitled "Born Free", starring Diana Muldaur and Gary Collins as Joy and George Adamson. The series was later followed by television film in 1996 called "", with Linda Purl and Chris Noth. Joy and George Adamson do not appear as the main characters in the story. "To Walk with Lions" (1999) depicts the last years of George Adamson's life, as