FULL LENGTH MOVIE OF CHRISTIAN THE LION CUB REUNION REUNITED, with John Rendall Ace Bourke George Adamson Born Free. ***NEWLY RELEASED INTERVIEW WITH JOHN RENDALL - ACE BOURKE SPEAKING EXCLUSIVELY ON TV ABOUT CHRISTIANS LEGACY http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/25929574/
A great link here at Snopes all about Christian the lion and his story with the born free foundation.
http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/christian.asp
Today, Ace Bourke is a museum curator in Australia. John Rendall is a trustee of the George Adamson Wildlife Trust, an organization actively involved in preserving African wildlife. The organization, according to Rendall, is part of Christian’s legacy. Rendall recommends the site www.WildlifeNow.com.
Ace Bourke is the Blonde in the Khaki shirt
*** As seen on THE VIEW, ITV NEWS, SKY NEWS, FOX TV, TODAY SHOW, BRAZILS TV RECORD CHANNEL, INDIA HINDI NEWS CHANNEL, AUSTRALIAN CHANNEL NINE NEWS, CHINAS BEIJING CCTV NEWS, BBC NEWS, ABC NEWS and CBC NEWS. ***
The orphaned baby lion cub is reunited with his keepers in africa a heart warming true story.
He travelled by Bentley, ate in fine London restaurants and spent his days lounging in a furniture shop. The story of Christian the pet lion - and his eventual release into the wild - is as moving as it is incredible.
The furniture shop was on the King’s Road in London. It sold tables, wardrobes, chairs and desks - but anybody peering through its plate-glass window on a Sunday might have noticed something rather more unusual.
Amid all the pine and oak, stretched out languidly on a bench, there was a lion. And it wasn’t stuffed.
“Christian used to lie beside me while I did the accounts at weekends,” remembers Jennifer Mary Taylor, who worked there.
“And every so often, if I’d ignored him for too long, he’d sock me across the head with one of his great big paws.
“He was very loving and affectionate - he liked to stand and put his paws on your shoulders. But he was…”, she pauses. “I mean, he was a lion. Does that sound silly?”
christian the lion (named by someone with a Biblical sense of humour) arrived in Chelsea at a time when the King’s Road - home to Mick Jagger - was the very heart of the Swinging Sixties.
For a year, the Big Cat was part of it all, cruising the streets in the back of a Bentley, popping in for lunch at Casserole, a local restaurant, even posing for a Biba fashion advert.
He eventually grew too big to be kept as a pet and was taken to Kenya, where he was rehabilitated into the wild by the ‘Lion Man’, George Adamson.
Now, his story is to be told in a new book, written by the Australian John Rendall who, along with his friend Ace Berg, bought Christian from Harrods in 1969.
So what possessed them to buy a lion cub in the first place?
“A friend had been to the ‘exotic animals’ department at Harrods and announced, rather grandly, that she wanted a camel,” says Rendall.
“To which the manager very coolly replied: ‘One hump or two, madam?’
“Ace and I thought this was the most sophisticated repartee we’d ever heard, so we went along to check it out - and there, in a small cage, was a gorgeous little lion cub. We were shocked. We looked at each other and said something’s got to be done about that.”
Harrods, it turned out, was also quite keen to be rid of Christian, who had escaped one night, sneaked into the neighbouring carpet department - then in the throes of a sale of goatskin rugs - and wreaked havoc.
The store, which had acquired the cub from Ilfracombe zoo, happily agreed to part with him for 250 guineas. So began Christian’s year as an urban lion.
Today, it would be unthinkable for a shop to take such a cavalier attitude towards selling exotic animals (though Harrods did, at least, provide Ace and Rendall with diet sheets).
And it is hard to imagine either the animal rights lobby or any local council condoning a shop as a suitable habitat for a lion. But, back then, no one minded at all.
Christian was given his own living quarters (and a very large kitty-litter tray, which he used unfailingly) in the basement of the appropriately named Sophistocat furniture shop.
“He had a beautiful musky smell that was very distinct,” says Rendall. “But he was clean.”
The vicar of the Moravian Chapel nearby was approached to allow Christian the run of the graveyard, and every day he was taken there to roar around and play football.
Once, when he was brought along to a seaside picnic, he dipped his toes reluctantly in the water and intimated with a shudder that it was disagreeably cold. But he was eventually persuaded to swim in the English Channel.
By the way John Rendal and Ace Bourke both released a book in 1972 called A LION CALLED CHRISTIAN heres a link to it on amazon
http://www.amazon.com/A-Lion-Called-Christian/dp/B000K6LF4Y
Copyright of this video is owned by Beckman Direct
Duration : 0:2:28
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Hahahah how does …
Hahahah how does this make people cry?
I laugh.
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Amazing!
Amazing!
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
why did this make …
why did this make me cry?
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
this is really just …
this is really just so amazing, that this happened!! so beautiful, moving, chilling, makes me cry every time!!!
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Ty john for sending …
Ty john for sending me this video..a great post 5*…very touching like Born Free….as a kid I cried so much…….Born Free as free as the wind blows…didn’t know these guys were associated with mckenna until I watched another video…TY
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
what a bunch of …
what a bunch of homo’s here
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
I cried too!
I cried too!
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
This a true …
This a true reflection of friendship. It’s awesome
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
i swear i cry …
i swear i cry everytime i watch this…makes me want to go love on all my pets! haha
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
What a reunian!
What a reunian!
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
I cried when I …
I cried when I watched this too.
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
wow this show that …
wow this show that a friend never forget
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
you are so dum!!!
…
you are so dum!!!
Are you a director or what?
Be happy, and look, make my hart soft
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
A lion hugging a …
A lion hugging a human? Please, you are so naive.
This is a fake movie made with an lion dress.
Look at 0.41 you can clearly see through the eye holes of the lion mask that there is an gap between the mask and the stuntmans head.
In 1.35 there is an strange wrinkel on the “fur”, (low right in the frame). That is because there is an zipper running along the hole back of the lion dress.
You have to wake up! This is the 21th century. Everything that you see is not for real.
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
hey you asshole. i …
hey you asshole. i was reacting to Gerald Staffelstein. he was the one claiming that the video is fake. so i was asking, can you fake a lion hugging human? you analyze first the statement before you retaliate you idiot asshole. keep your cool when reading comments… stupid!
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
ya being that this …
ya being that this happened before your 18 year old can comment it’s been on every major network out there like we would believe you . Your a nobody I am laughing in the floor at your ignorance
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
bullshit
bullshit
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
I cry each time I …
I cry each time I see this. It is my favorite!
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
is it fake for a …
is it fake for a lion to be jumping to human? so was the reunion part shot against a blue screen and the humans were just put there after a thorough editing?
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
“They made a …
“They made a documentary called ‘The Lion at World’s End’ in 1971 and this footage is from that documentary filming every step of the lion’s journey.The film is a documentary produced to finance the project of sending Christian from London to the wilds of east Africa. It’s not fake”
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
seen this a million …
seen this a million times.still brinqs a tear to my beautiful brown eye.*
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
adorable
adorable
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
youre a …
youre a doucher…even your name makes you sound like a complete fucktard staffelstein
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Excuse me… I hate …
Excuse me… I hate to break the good mood but this video is clealrly fake.
1. The “reunion” is constucted by more then 40 cuts in the video material. With a little bit of experiense of film editing knows how easy it is to manipulate the material into desired context.
This is basics in film editing.
2. The video clearly shows that the sequenses is shot in at least 3 diffrent places.
3. The music contributes to the false perception. Common in anglo sachsian dramaturgy for manipulation.
August 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
what people don’t …
what people don’t realize is that dozens of casualties were sacrificed while trying to make this video. the lion ended up eating most of them, until finally they were able to train it to not do so. those 2 got lucky…
nah jk. awesome video. very touching