Tippi Hedren may be best known for her role in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds and as Melanie Griffith’s mother, but for her, her greatest accomplishment has been the establishment of game preserve Shambala and animal protection group The Roar Foundation.

Tippi lives at Shambala, 50 miles north of LA, along with 57 exotic animals including tigers, lions, bobcats and an elephant, all of whom were born in captivity, then found themselves unwanted or even abused.

Tippi's inspiration for Shambala arose from her experiences filming in Africa in 1969. “When we weren’t filming, we would go to different game preserves,” she recalls. “People there were telling us, ‘If we don’t do something right now to save the animals in the wild, by the year 2000 they’re going to be gone.’ I immediately became interested.”

She says that all of her famous daughter’s three children adore animals, particularly four-year-old Stella, Melanie’s child with husband Antonio Banderas. Tippi is crazy about her son-in-law and her grandchildren, who often visit Shambala. “All of them are intrigued, but of course they realise the animals are wild and I don’t allow them to get too close to the enclosures. Their safety is of the utmost concern to me.”

For the full story and pictures of Tippi at home at game preserve Shambala, see this week’s HELLO! magazine, on sale now.