Dakota Johnson says grandma Tippi Hedren still has '13 or 14' big cats
"Fifty Shades of Grey" star Dakota Johnson has confirmed that her grandma, screen legend Tippi Hedren, still has a passion for big cats.
In an interview with U.K. talk show host Graham Norton, Johnson said that "The Birds" star Hedren has "13 or 14 lions and tigers."
Johnson, whose mother is Hedren's daughter Melanie Griffith, said that the collection used to be closer to 60.
"By the time I was born they were all in huge compounds," she added. "It was a lot safer and it wasn't as totally psycho as it was when they first started."
Hedren, 90, and her ex-husband, late film producer Noel Marshall, famously began to adopt lions in 1971 to make a movie called "Roar" about a scientist living with big cats. According to Entertainment Weekly, by the time principal photography on the film began five years later, the animal cast included 132 lions, tigers, leopards, cougars and jaguars -- and a 10,000-pound bull elephant.
Marshall's son John, who appears in the film alongside his then-step-sister Griffith, told the magazine that 72 people were injured in the movie's production.
"In hindsight, I know how stupid it was to do this film," he said. "I am amazed no one died."
Hedren, who split from Marshall in 1982, later founded the Roar Foundation, which supports the Shambala Preserve animal sanctuary in Acton, California. She also wrote a book about her animals, "Cats of Shambala."
