Bo Derek reveals how she was nearly killed by lion while filming Tarzan movie

Actor played Jane in Tarzan the Ape Man

Bo Derek has revealed that she was nearly killed on the set of Tarzan, the Ape Man by a rogue lion.

The 1981 film, in which Derek played Jane Porter, features a beach scene where Tarzan and Jane meet for the first time and are joined by a lion.

Only the lion went off script and started to attack Derek while she was in the water and there was no animal handler close by.

She told Yahoo Entertainment that Miles O’Keefe, who played Tarzan, saved her life: “The lion went to leap again, but Miles held him just long enough around the waist to confuse him and that gave me time to get into the ocean.

“Right before the wave came, the lion did get on my back, and went to take my shoulder off, but the angle was wrong. He just sliced me on my shoulder.

“Tarzan saved my life.”

She also remembers that she had a feeling she was going to be attacked by the lion: “I don’t like the way he’s looking at me. You get that feeling on the back of your neck that you’re prey and that’s the way he was looking at me."

The director of the film, John Derek, also Bo’s husband, actually kept the take of the lion attack in the finished film.