Cruella de Vil is a fictional character in the English author Dodie Smith's 1956 novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians. A pampered and glamorous London heiress and fashion designer, she appears in Walt Disney Productions' animated feature film One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), voiced by Betty Lou Gerson; in Disney's animated sequel 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure (2003), voiced by Susanne Blakeslee; in Disney's live-action films 101 Dalmatians (1996) and 102 Dalmatians (2000), portrayed by Glenn Close; as well as Cruella (2021), portrayed by Emma Stone; and in many other Disney media.
In most of her incarnations, Cruella kidnaps the 15 puppies of the main Dalmatian characters, Pongo and Perdita, intending to turn them into fur coats along with 84 other Dalmatian puppies she legally bought before. The live-action Disney film reveals that Cruella chooses to skin puppies because when short-haired dogs grow older, their fur becomes coarse and does not sell as well as the fine, soft fur of puppies.
Cruella has become a pop cultural icon and a symbol of greed, vanity, evil, and cruelty to animals.Baldassare, Michael A. 1999. "Cruella de Vil, Hades, and Ursula the Sea-Witch: How Disney Films Teach Our Children the Basics of Contract Law." Drake Law Review 48(2). Disney's Cruella ranked 39th on AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains.
Name Cruella de Vil is a pun of the words cruel and devil, an allusion that is emphasised by having her English country house nicknamed 'Hell Hall'. The name 'de Vil' is also a literary allusion to Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897), in which the realty firm Mitchell, Sons & Candy write a letter to Lord Godalming informing him that the purchaser of a house in Piccadilly, London, is "a foreign nobleman, Count De Ville". Count De Ville, however, proves to be an alias for Count Dracula himself.
It is also believed that the name is inspired by the Rolls-Royce 25/30 "Sedanca de Ville" motorcar bought by Dodie Smith in 1939, in which she and her pet Dalmatian "Pongo" frequently travelled, which also formed the basis of the cartoon imagery of Cruella's own motorcar. In automotive coachbuilding, the term "de Ville" had originally indicated a vehicle with a separate compartment for the driver or chauffeur but by mid-twentieth century simply bespoke ostentatious luxury, as befits the overprivileged Cruella.
In some translations of the name, other wordplay is used to similar effect as the name in English. For instance:
In Bulgarian, her name is Круела Де Вил (Kruela De Vil), but some properties use her translated name, Злобара Де Мон (Zlobara De Mon)—"злоба" meaning malice, spite, or malevolence. In Dutch, the name remains 'De Vil'. By coincidence, the Dutch verb for 'skinning' is villen, and vil is the conjugation of this verb for the first person singular. In Finnish, she is known as Julmia Juoninen, a name formed from the words julma (cruel) and juoni (plot, scheme). In French, she is referred as 'Cruella d'Enfer'—literally meaning 'Cruella of Hell' or 'from Hell'. In Hungarian, her name is Szörny Ella (Ella Monster) in the books and Szörnyella de Frász (Monsterella de Fright) in her Disney appearances. In Italian, she is called 'Crudelia De Mon'—a pun on crudele ('cruel') and demonio ('demon') In Polish (among other translations), the character is known as 'Cruella De Mon'—a play on the word 'demon'. She is also known as Torturella de Mon, a pun on the word 'tortura' (torture). In Brazilian Portuguese, Cruella is known as 'Cruela Cruel', which straightforwardly stems from 'cruel'. In both Spanish and European Portuguese, the name remains 'De Vil', but instead of representing "devil", it represents words for "from vileness" or "from villainy". In Russian, her name is Стервелла Де Виль (Stervella De Vil), from "стерва" (bitch, as a human character derogative term). In Serbian, her name is Круела Де Вил (Kruela De Vil), but some properties use her translated name, Злица од Опака (Zlica od Opaka)—"злица" meaning evil, and "од Опака" meaning wicked. In Ukrainian, her name is Лютелла Де Віль (Lyutella De Vil), a pun on the word "лють" (fury). She is also known as Лютелла Де Явол (Lyutella De Yavol), where Де Явол is very similar to the word "диявол" (devil).
In Dodie Smith's novels The Hundred and One Dalmatians
Cruella is depicted as a pampered and glamorous London heiress in the original story. She was a former schoolmate of Mrs. Dearly (one of the owners of the original Dalmatians), but Mrs. Dearly says they were not friends because Cruella frightened her. As a child, Cruella had one black plait and one white plait and was eventually expelled for drinking ink. However, she appears to be on friendlier terms with Mrs. Dearly by the novel's beginning, before Cruella steals the Dearlys' Dalmatian puppies, having noted they would make "enchanting fur coats" and that no one had thought of making coats of dog skins before.
The One Hundred and One Dalmatians describes Cruella as the last descendant of a prosperous and notorious family; she appears wealthy, but is in fact heavily in debt. She is married to a furrier, whose first name is never mentioned by anyone. Many characters remark that Cruella only married him for his occupation. When Mrs. Dearly asks Cruella what her married name is, Cruella retorts that, in contrast to the usual patriarchal custom, she has made her husband adopt her surname as his own; however, she and her husband have no children, meaning the line will still die out with her. Cruella is portrayed as the tyrannical figure in the marriage, and her husband is a meek, subservient man who seldom speaks and obeys his wife entirely, even though he is just as evil as she is. He keeps his entire fur collection in the house so Cruella can wear whichever she likes. Her favorite is a white mink cloak, which she usually wears with tight satin dresses and jewels. The dresses and jewels are always in contrasting colours—for instance, a black dress with ropes of pearls, or a red dress with ropes of emeralds. However, her jewels are later revealed to be mostly sham.
Cruella's chauffeur-driven car is a black-and-white striped Daimler Empress Mark III DF 308 limousine; Mr. Dearly describes it as "a moving zebra crossing". Cruella boasts that it has the loudest horn in London, which she insists on sounding for the Dearly couple. When Cruella has guests for dinner, all of her food is strangely coloured and tastes strongly of pepper. When Mr. Dearly comments she might find her mink cloak too warm for a mild autumn evening, Cruella laughs that she never finds anything too warm; she constantly stokes a roaring fire and complains of being cold despite the unbearable heat. The flat is portrayed as a luxurious version of Hell, with all the rooms made of marble and coloured garishly in green, red, or black. Her guests also meet her abused white Persian cat, whom Cruella freely admits she would have killed if it were not worth so much money.
Cruella happens to be in the house when the puppies are born, as Mrs. Dearly reluctantly invites the de Vils to a dinner party along with her other guests. The other guests leave politely when the puppies arrive, but Cruella barges into the broom cupboard to see the puppies. Revolted by the spotless skins of the newborns, she offers to have them drowned at once; this is her way of getting rid of animals she views as worthless, as she has drowned dozens of her cat's kittens. The Dearlys assures her the spots will come later, but refuse to sell the puppies. Upon a second visit to the house, Cruella picks up the mature puppies and treats them like clothing to be worn. A third visit occurs when the Dearlys are out, and Cruella, having bought up all the other Dalmatian puppies she could find in the area, keeps the Nannies talking while hired thieves steal the puppies for her. However, her plan backfires when the Dearlys start advertising for the missing puppies and the publicity makes selling Dalmatian coats too risky. Cruella demands the Baduns, caretakers of her old estate of Hell Hall, to kill the puppies at once, but the dogs escape after she leaves. Cruella pursues them, but her love of fire causes her to stop and applaud the spectacle of a bakery burning to the ground, buying the dogs more time.
When the Dalmatians return to London, they and the Persian cat enact vengeance on Cruella by destroying all of Mr de Vil's fur stock. Most of the furs were not yet paid off, and the de Vils fled England to get away from their debts, supposedly going in for plastic raincoats instead of fur. Cruella's black side of her hair goes white, and the white side goes an off-greenish shade, from the shock.
The Starlight Barking
In Smith's 1967 sequel, The Starlight Barking, Cruella and her husband return to England and start a business selling metallic plastics. Cruella, while still obsessed with heat and pepper, has lost her obsession with fur, replacing all her coats, sheets, cloaks, etc. with metallic plastic versions that are as impenetrable as armour. She has dyed her hair to its normal black and white state. When Sirius puts all the humans to sleep, the dogs and cats believe Cruella is responsible and decide to kill her once and for all, until they find she is asleep like everyone else and no longer a threat to them due to having lost interest in fur. It is noted that she is the only one of the sleepers who does not look peaceful (even her husband snores away happily) but instead is grim and unhappy even in sleep. She has repainted her house and removed the marble (artificial marble, according to the White Cat), so the walls now resemble angular psychedelic paintings, many of them portraits of herself.
In Disney media
Animated adaptations One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961 film)
Disney's animated version of Cruella first appeared in 1961's One Hundred and One Dalmatians, in which she was voiced by Betty Lou Gerson and animated by Marc Davis, who together crafted her into an iconic and memorable character. Cruella is one of the few characters to be completely controlled by a single animator, and Davis claimed that Gerson's vocal performance was his greatest inspiration when it came to the character. Disney based its version of Cruella on the personality and mannerisms of Tallulah Bankhead, and her long, lanky physical design came from Mary Wickes, who served as her live-action model. The cool detachment of the original character was replaced by a crazed mania, in which Cruella only barely clung to a sheen of glamour. For unexplained reasons, Cruella's cat and husband were omitted from the Disney version. Cruella drives a very distinctive automobile, coloured red and black, which strongly resembles a Mercedes-Benz 500K Cabriolet.
In 2002 Forbes ranked Disney's Cruella as the thirteenth-wealthiest fictional character. She was also listed as the 39th-greatest villain in American cinema in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains. Moreover, in Ultimate Disney's Top 30 Disney Villains Countdown, Cruella ranked #6.
In the film, Cruella is wealthy, rude, and spoilt. She mocks her childhood friend, Anita Radcliffe and Anita's husband Roger for earning their money from songwriting. Cruella desires to make a fur coat from the Radcliffes' Dalmatians, but does not tell the Radcliffes this, simply demanding to know when the puppies arrive. Upon the night of the puppies' birth, Cruella is at first dismayed to find their coats completely spotless but cheers up when Anita tells her that the spots will appear in a few weeks. Cruella makes an offer to buy the puppies, all the while mocking Roger for his songwriting career and splattering Roger and Pongo with ink from her pen. When Roger finally defends himself and his wife from her and tells her the puppies are not for sale, she furiously ends her friendship with Anita and storms out, vowing vengeance.