Cruella de Vil

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 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.

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

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.

Weeks later, Cruella secretly hires two thieves named Jasper and Horace Badun to steal the puppies, which they do. Both Roger and the police immediately suspect her, but the latter fails to find anything connecting her to the theft. However, fearing the ongoing investigation, Cruella goes to her ancestral home in Suffolk, where the puppies are being kept, and angrily demands her henchmen to kill and skin the puppies for her that very night, exploding a bottle of alcohol in the fireplace to drive home her point. The next morning, Cruella learns that the puppies have escaped the house at night, being rescued by Pongo and Perdita. She and her henchmen set off in pursuit, and she berates Jasper and Horace for reckless driving, despite her worse driving skills.

Live-action adaptations

Glenn Close portrays Cruella de Vil in the 1996 film 101 Dalmatians and its 2000 sequel, 102 Dalmatians. The film reinvents Cruella as the vindictive, snobbish and very glamorous magnate of an haute couture fashion house, "House of De Vil", which specialises in fur couture. The character of Anita (played by Joely Richardson) is a couturière and employee of De Vil. Unlike the animated film, the live-action version provides another reason why Cruella wants to make the puppies into coats at a young age: their fur would not be as soft and as fine when they fully grow up. At the start of the film, it is revealed that Cruella has secretly had her henchmen slaughter a white Siberian tiger at London Zoo for its pelt. The suspicions and accusations of the Dearly family force Cruella to step up her plans to make the puppies into a coat, the puppies escaping while her henchmen are preparing to do the work and Cruella being subsequently thrown into a vat of molasses and a pig pen when she tries to track them to a farm. At the end of the film, she and her henchmen are arrested and sent to prison, with the Dearlys able to buy a large house after Roger's latest video game (inspired by the puppies' ordeal) proves a success when he also makes Cruella the villain within the game's storyline.

Along with Close's performance, Cruella's costumes (by Anthony Powell and Rosemary Burrows) received appreciative attention, including a spread in Vanity Fair. Claws were applied to her gloves, while her necklaces were made from teeth, to add to the idea that Cruella enjoyed wearing parts of dead animals. Nails were also projected from the heels to make them especially vicious in appearance. Some of her clothes were made out of leather or PVC, and Cruella always wore much make-up. She is seen in the film always smoking to give the appearance of a mysterious "villain".

This film increased the physical comedy of the Disney animated film, even veering into more juvenile humor, such as Cruella falling into a vat of old molasses. Close's performance was well-received and her sex appeal as the character was also credited. Close has commented on how demanding the slapstick physicality of the role was while wearing nail-heeled boots and corsets. Close also insisted that she should fall into the molasses herself rather than delegate it to a stunt double. However, the live-action film was not as critically successful as the animated one.

In 102 Dalmatians, while under the effect of Dr. Ivan Pavlov's hypnotherapy treatment, Cruella is cured of her fur addiction and released from prison on parole, three years after the events of the first film. She insists on being called "Ella" because "Cruella sounds so... cruel". Reformed, she becomes completely devoted to saving animals. She is appalled by even the smallest sight of fur fashion, boarding up all her fur clothing and the drawing of herself in a Dalmatian puppy coat. She quits her characteristic habits, such as wearing fur clothing, long nails, extravagant hairstyles, and smoking.

Disney Parks and live productions

Cruella is the only meetable character from the 101 Dalmatians franchise at the Disney Parks and Resorts, and is usually located on Main Street, USA.

Cruella is also one of the Disney Villains Mickey fights in Disney's Hollywood Studios version of Fantasmic! Nighttime Show Spectacular in Walt Disney World. In Disney On Ice "Celebrations", Cruella was one of the Villains who appears during the Halloween Party.

Cruella is also a part of the Disney's Hollywood Studios live show Disney Villains: Unfairly Ever Afterin a major role as one of the three villains of the show.

Video games

Cruella appears as the main antagonist in the 101 Dalmatians franchise video games 101 Dalmatians: Escape from DeVil Manor (1997) and 102 Dalmatians: Puppies to the Rescue (2000).

Cruella is a playable character to unlock for a limited time in Disney Magic Kingdoms.

An alternate version of 1961 film's Cruella appears as a playable character in the video game Disney Mirrorverse.

In October 2024, Disney's Cruella was added as a playable character in Fortnite.

Cruella is set to appear in the DLC "Wishblossom Ranch" for Disney Dreamlight Valley, as one of the villagers of the titular valley.

Books

Cruella first appears in Power Play, the fourth book of the young-adult book series by Ridley Pearson, Kingdom Keepers, as a member of the Overtakers, a group of Disney Villains. She is valuable to them since she knows the ways of the modern world. Cruella works with the Evil Queen to free Maleficent and Chernabog, while making sure the Keepers stay off their trail. Using DHI technology, she and the Queen head for the power facility and shut down the electricity, allowing Maleficent and Chernabog to escape their cells.

In the following book, Shell Game, she assists the Queen and Maleficent in stealing Walt's original notes on Chernabog from the Archives. She then boards the Dream for the two-week cruise, along with the rest of the Overtakers. She commands the Lion King hyenas, Happy and Howley, having them patrol the ship to keep the Keepers from finding Chernabog.

In the seventh book, The Insider, Cruella joins Tia Dalma, the Queen and Judge Doom's group in Toontown; she calls an army of animals to the area with a simple command, only to be knocked out by Amanda's telekinesis. Finn later discovers Cruella had been living in a luxurious decommissioned train compartment and tries strangling her to death. She flees in terror, but has a wrench tossed at her. She is last seen slumped on the ground, bleeding.

In the seventh book of the Villains series by Serena Valentino, Cruella De Vil tells her story in the first person starting with her childhood. She describes herself growing up, with her father dying at an early age after gifting her daughter a pair of jade earrings that were said to have been cursed by the Odd Sisters, figures in the fairy tale books Cruella loved to read as a child. Her mother is a self-absorbed socialite, hardly ever seeing her daughter and giving her gifts, which Cruella equates to her mother loving her. The only two people that truly care about her are her governess, Miss Pricket, and her friend Anita who comes from a lower-class family.

When they attend school together, Cruella defends Anita from the bullies, and after school intends for Anita and her to travel around the world together. When Cruella puts on her jade earrings, she experiences a surge of power and becomes bossy and mean. She wears them when confronting the school headmistress at Anita's treatment. During the holidays following their first year at school, Cruella decides to have the staff's holiday dinner celebration downstairs, but her mother arrives in horror, and forbids Cruella from going back to school and is determined to find her a husband, as well as banning her from seeing Anita.

Audio adaptation

In 1996 the BBC adapted Dodie Smith's novel into a full-cast musical audio dramatisation starring Patricia Hodge as Cruella. This version is for the most part faithful to the source material, with some changes. Cruella's husband argues with her more than in the novel, and Cruella's love of heat is attributed to her simply being cold all the time, whereas in the book it is just a characteristic which implies she may not be fully human. Cruella and her husband do not leave England at the end of the story, and their fate is left unknown. The Dearlys never figure out that Cruella is behind the theft of the dogs. This version is to date the only adapted version which includes Cruella's husband, her love of heat and pepper, her cat, her zebra-striped car, and the fact her hair changes colour at the end of the story.

In this version, Cruella and the Baduns are given their own song, "It's Their Furs., which they sing together when Cruella orders the brothers to kill the pups.Amazon Audible later released this production as an audiobook, available for streaming online or through the app.

Stage musical

Cruella appears in The 101 Dalmatians Musical, the stage musical adaptation of the novel. She was portrayed by Rachel York; however, she announced on her blog that she had stepped down from the role to pursue other projects. The role was taken over by Sara Gettelfinger. In the 2022 musical adaptation of the novel, Cruella was portrayed by Kate Fleetwood.

In popular culture

In the Hey Arnold! episode "Curly's Girl", when Rhonda breaks up with Curly after pretending to be his girlfriend, Helga calls her "Cruella".

In the 1994 film Trading Mom, Jeremy Martin (played by Aaron Michael Metchik) strongly disapproves of his older sister's choice for their new mother, a wealthy and fussy French woman, during their first visit to the Mommy Market stating she looks like Cruella de Vil due to her evident liking of cigarettes and her extravagant appearance.

In the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap, Annie James (played by Lindsay Lohan) tells her mother that her father is marrying a woman as evil as Cruella de Vil. This could also be considered an inside joke as Cruella de Vil is also the head of a prestigious London fashion house, just like Elizabeth James (played by Natasha Richardson). Furthermore, and coincidentally, the actress' sister Joely Richardson played Anita Campbell-Green-Dearly, Cruella de Vil's most trusted employee, in the 1996 remake of 101 Dalmatians. Meredith Blake (Elaine Hendrix) is occasionally referred to as "Cruella" by the twins as a tease, much to her annoyance.

An inflatable representation of the character appeared at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London alongside other villains, Lord Voldemort, The Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook and Child Catcher, to haunt children's dreams – before the arrival of a group of over thirty Mary Poppins who descended with their umbrellas to defeat them – in a segment celebrating British children's literature.

In Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, a tabloid once published a story accusing Lois Lane of cheating on her husband Clark Kent with Superman. Lois commented she was under Cruella on the popularity scale.

In the first six seasons of the History Channel series American Restoration, Tyler Dale wears his hair dyed half-blonde, emulating Cruella's hairstyle.

In music

The Queen song "Let Me Entertain You" features the lyrics "I'll Cruella de Vil You!"

"The Cruel One" by Children 18:3 is a song about 101 Dalmatians, mentioning Cruella de Vil by name in the chorus.

The Deadsy song "Cruella" is written about Cruella de Vil.

Rock band The Replacements recorded a cover of the song "Cruella de Vil" for a compilation of Disney covers. It also appears on their 1997 compilation album, All for Nothing / Nothing for All.

Spanish singer Alaska made a cover of song "Cruella de Vil" for the Spanish version of the 101 Dalmatians live-action film.

Separate volumes of Disney's Greatest Hits include covers of "Cruella de Vil" from the 1961 film, including one by teen singer and actress Selena Gomez, as well as a two covers (one big-band cover) by blues pianist and vocalist Dr. John.

Mark Campbell (lead vocalist of Jack Mack and the Heart Attack) sings the funky "Cruella De Vil" in 102 Dalmatians, and on the 2000 Disney Soundtrack Album.

The barbershop quartet Vocal Spectrum performed a cover of the song "Cruella de Vil".

American singer and performer Lady Gaga dressed up as Cruella de Vil for Halloween in 2010. The performer has had many outfits inspired by the villain.

American singer Melanie Martinez dyed half of her hair blonde, in the same vein as Cruella.

Late American rapper XXXTentacion, inspired by Cruella, dyed half of his hair blonde.

Parodies

In The Simpsons episode "Two Dozen and One Greyhounds", Mr. Burns plays the role of Cruella De Vil, stealing Santa's Little Helper's puppies to make them into a tuxedo. However, unlike Cruella, who has no hesitation in killing the puppies, Burns cannot bear to kill the puppies himself, because they are too cute. Declaring that he will never kill any animal that can perform good tricks again, Burns pays the Simpsons for the puppies, and he trains them to be world-class racing dogs.

In the Dexter's Laboratory episode "Peltra", the title character is a parody of Cruella de Vil.

Coco LaBouche, the antagonist of the 2000 Rugrats film Rugrats in Paris, shares many characteristics with Cruella.

Cruella de Vil appeared in the MAD episode "2012 Dalmatians", a mash-up of 2012 and One Hundred and One Dalmatians.

In the Jessie episode "101 Lizards", Mrs. Chesterfield plays a role similar to Cruella de Vil, where the protagonists suspect that she took Mrs. Kipling's baby lizards to make a suit out of them.

Cruella de Vil appeared in a Robot Chicken skit called "101 Dalmatian Reproduction" in the episode "Yogurt in a Bag". In this short, Roger and Anita apologise to her after realising Dalmatians breed more than rabbits (even siblings) and willingly give the adopted 85 puppies back to Cruella. Cruella notes everyone is the hero of their own story, earning some ire from Roger and Anita.

A parody of Cruella appears in the musical Twisted, a parody of Disney's Aladdin told from Jafar's point of view. In the title song, various Disney villains including Ursula, Scar, Gaston, Maleficent and Captain Hook, appear to Jafar and bemoan that they were unfairly portrayed and had good reasons for their actions. Cruella, conversely, states that all she wanted was to make a coat out of puppies, to which the other villains react in disgust.

In the mobile game Disney Twisted-Wonderland, the alchemy teacher at Night Raven College, Divus Crewel, is inspired by Cruella.