We might be a nation of animal-lovers, but for most of us, there’s a limit. Not so for these fearless celebrities, who decided to move in with lions, tigers and a cheetah
Talk about being in a Jam! This week the Daily Star revealed that singer Paul Weller was once attacked by a pet lion, owned by his dad’s pal, while on his way to a gig.
In fact, there are plenty of intrepid folk who have kept big cats as pets over the years – including lions, tigers and cheetahs, though with mixed success.
Here JAMES MOORE looks at some of the fur-eakiest cases…
Oh mane! Tippi Hedren, now 95, is most famous for being attacked by winged critters in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 movie The Birds. But in real-life she had no qualms about keeping a 400lb lion, called Neil, around the family home with her producer husband Noel Marshall and future actress daughter Melanie Griffith.
Neil, who they raised from a cub, had the run of the house, pool and even shared Griffith’s bed. Hedren and Marshall brought him into their Beverly Hills home to research their ill-fated 1981 movie Roar, which featured scores of big cats. Some 70 members of the cast ended up injured and Griffith almost lost an eye when she was mauled by a different lion.
Bite nasty : Heavyweight champ Mike Tyson once notoriously bit the ear of rival Evander Holyfield. So it’s apt that the boxer decided to keep three Bengal tigers, known for their own powerful jaws, as pets.
He kept one of them, Kenya, for 16 years. But the 550lb beast ended up ripping the arm off an intruder at his property, who’d scaled a fence to play with the animal.
Tyson, who gave Kenya away after the incident, now admits: “I was foolish. There’s no way you can domesticate these cats 100 per cent, no way that’s going to happen.”
Fast mover : American actress and burlesque dancer Josephine Baker, who moved to France to perform before World War Two, kept a pet cheetah called Chiquita.
The critter, which wore a diamond collar, accompanied her on walks, slept in her bed and rode in her car. It also joined Baker on stage and would sometimes jump into the orchestra pit causing havoc among the musicians.
Claw blimey : Showbiz duo Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn had been performing with white lions and tigers for decades when tragedy struck in 2003. Mantacore, a 400lb white tiger, suddenly attacked Horn during a performance in Las Vegas, biting his neck and severing his spine and an artery, leaving him partially paralysed.
But even on the way to the hospital, Horn described Mantacore as a “great cat” and the feline continued to live with the pair at their estate until his death aged 17 in 2014.
Grrr-eat purchase: In 1969 Aussies John Rendall and Anthony Bourke bought a lion cub at the posh London department store Harrods. They paid £3,500 for the cat and named him Christian.
He lived at their Chelsea flat and became a local celebrity, padding around the furniture store they owned on the King’s Road. He even appeared on TV.
Once he became fully grown the pair released Christian into the wild in Kenya. A year later they returned to meet him…Christian recognised them and the three had an emotional reunion.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
