Born Free Born Free Born Free is a 1966 British drama film starring Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers as Joy and George Adamson, a real-life couple who raised Elsa the Lioness, an orphaned lion cub, to adulthood, and released her into the wilderness of Kenya. The film was produced by Open Road Films Ltd. and Columbia Pictures. The screenplay, written by blacklisted Hollywood writer Lester Cole (under the pseudonym "Gerald L.C. Copley"), was based upon Joy Adamson's 1960 non-fiction book "Born Free". The film was directed by James Hill and produced by Sam Jaffe and Paul Radin. "Born Free", and its musical
Bill Travers in the Indian Army on 9 July 1942 (from the rank of private). He served in the Long Range Penetration Brigade 4th Battalion 9th Gurkha Rifles in Burma, attached to Orde Wingate's staff, during which service he came to know John Masters, who was his brigade major (Travers was later to act in "Bhowani Junction", a tale written by Masters). While deep behind enemy lines, Major Travers was struck by malaria and volunteered to be left behind in a native Burmese village. To avoid capture, he disguised himself as a Chinese national and walked hundreds of miles through jungle territory