Hollywood veteran Morgan Freeman is in “good spirits” at a hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, after breaking his arm and elbow in a car crash.

Initially thought to be gravely injured after the Regional Medical Centre described his condition as “serious”, the 71-year-old actor is expected to make a good recovery, according to his spokeswoman.

Freeman "has a broken arm, broken elbow and minor shoulder damage, but is in good spirits", his publicist, Donna Lee, said.

The Oscar-winner was airlifted to hospital after his car left a rural highway late on Sunday night, becoming airborne before landing in a ditch.

Freeman, who is currently on cinema screens in the Batman blockbuster The Dark Knight, and his female passenger, Demaris Meyer, of Memphis, had to be cut from the wreckage.

Sergeant Ben Williams, a Highway Patrol spokesman, said that Freeman was driving a 1997 Nissan Maxima, belonging to Ms Meyer, when the car left the road and overturned several times. "There's no indication that either alcohol or drugs were involved," Mr Williams said.

Both Freeman and Meyer had been wearing seatbelts. There was still no information on Ms Meyer's condition, he said.

The crash happened north of the small town of Ruleville in rural Tallahatchie County in the Mississippi Delta. Freeman, who won an Oscar in 2005 for his role in Million Dollar Baby, lives near by with his wife, Myrna, on a 126-acre ranch.

Clay McFerrin, Editor of local paper Sun Sentinel, said that he arrived at the crash scene on Mississippi Highway 32 soon after it happened. "They had to use the jaws of life [hydraulic cutters] to extract him from the vehicle," he said.

"He was lucid, conscious. He was talking, joking with some of the rescue workers at one point."

Mr McFerrin said that bystanders had converged on the scene trying to get a glimpse of the actor. When one person tried to take a photo with a mobile phone camera, Freeman responded: "No freebies, no freebies."

Freeman is due to play Nelson Mandela in The Human Factor, which begins filming next year.

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