MANOFMANY

The lion lived in the house. In 1971, LIFE photographer Michael Rougier spent time at Tippi Hedren and Noel Marshall's home in Sherman Oaks, where a 400lb male lion named Neil swam in the pool, sprawled across the kitchen floor and slept on 13-year-old Melanie Griffith's bed. It was research. The couple were writing Roar, a film about a family living among big cats, and they had decided the only honest way to make it was to live it. Los Angeles disagreed. Authorities found the animals in 1972 and ordered them out of the suburbs, so the production moved to a ranch in Soledad Canyon and kept going for another decade. Roar took 11 years and $17 million to finish, used around 150 untrained lions, tigers, leopards and jaguars, and injured at least 70 cast and crew. Cinematographer Jan de Bont was scalped by a lion and took 220 stitches. Hedren was bitten on the head, then broke a leg after an elephant threw her. Griffith needed reconstructive surgery on her face. The film grossed under $2 million. Hedren's verdict, years later, on letting a lion roam the family home: stupid beyond belief. #TippiHedren #MelanieGriffith #Roar