Biography: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Joy Adamson (20 January 1910 – 3 January 1980) (born Friederike Victoria Gessner) was a naturalist, artist, and author best known for her book, Born Free, which describes her experiences raising a lion cub named Elsa. Born Free was printed in several languages, and made into an Academy Award-winning movie of the same name. Description above from the Wikipedia article Joy Adamson, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.