Morgan Freeman is critically ill in hospital after the car he was driving overturned several times, US authorities said.

The Oscar-winning actor was airlifted to the Regional Medical Centre in Memphis, Tennessee, where his condition was described as "serious" following the crash on a highway in rural Mississippi late on Sunday.

The 71-year-old actor broke his shoulder and arm in the incident, but is expected to make a "good" recovery, Freeman's spokesman said.

Highway Patrol spokesman Sergeant Ben Williams said Freeman was driving a 1997 Nissan Maxima which belonged to Demaris Meyer, of Memphis, when the car left a rural highway and overturned several times.

"There's no indication that either alcohol or drugs were involved," Mr Williams said.

There are reports Freeman fell asleep at the wheel.

State troopers said the Oscar-winning actor was talking before he was airlifted from the scene and friends of Freeman's have been quoted as saying he was sitting up and talking in hospital.

Clay McFerrin, editor of Sun Sentinel in Charleston, said it appeared that the car Freeman was driving was airborne went it left the highway and landed in a ditch.

"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 bystanders converged on the scene trying to get a glimpse of the actor.

He added that when one person tried to take a photo with a mobile phone camera, Freeman said: "No freebies, no freebies."

Freeman, who won an Oscar in 2005 for his role in Million Dollar Baby, lives near Charleston with his wife, Myrna, on a 126-acre ranch with a main house, peach trees and horse stables.

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