Cruella De Vil

Cruella De Vil is the main antagonist of the novel, One Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith, the Disney 1961 animated film of the same name, its sequel, and its television series. In short, she is the Big Bad of the entire franchise.

She is portrayed by Betty Lou Gerson in the animated film and is currently voiced by Susanne Blakeslee, Glenn Close in the live-action adaption and its sequel, 102 Dalmatians and by Emma Stone in the 2021 live-action origin story, Cruella. Cruella De Vil loves furs and is obsessed with them.

She is known to be greedy, spoiled, selfish, and unkind. And she is a new arch enemy of Winnie the Pooh and Ash Ketchum in the Pooh's Adventures of 101 Dalmatians Saga. She's obsessed with fur, and made it her goal to kidnap Pongo and Perdita's 15 puppies, including Pooh, Piglet. Tigger, Ash, And Pikachu, so she should make fur coats and kill their friends. She's accompanied by her bumbling henchmen Jasper and Horace and her partners, Pooh's Disney and Non-Disney enemies: Jafar, Iago, Maleficent, Ursula, Hades, Joker, Harley Quinn, and The Grand Duke of Owls. She fails in her first attempts, but Cruella will strive to get revenge on Pooh, Ash, and their friends someday.

Backstory

Cruella De Vil grew up like a normal child in England and went to school with a future Anita Radcliffe, but at some point in life, she became fabulously wealthy. With her wealth, she sought to obtain the most lavish clothing and lifestyle, with fur becoming her greatest obsession. Over the years, before Pongo and Perdita were married, she purchased dozens of dalmatian puppies until she acquired 84 of them.

Appearances

One Hundred and One Dalmatians

In her appearance, Cruella is mentioned by Roger to be Anita's old schoolmate. He begins to sing his own version of Cruella "Cruella De Vil" Cruella storms in and asks if the puppies came believing they are the key to make a spotted fur coat. Anita says in three weeks they will. Cruella leaves without even joining Anita for tea. She then comes back in three weeks. Both Radcliffes say no when she asks them to sell the puppies. Roger even told Cruella off. Furious, Cruella leaves. She asks Horace and Jasper for help in stealing the puppies. Then she next appears in the movie when she angrily watches her henchmen watching "What's My Crime". She demands them to start skinning the puppies for a fur coat. She slaps Horace and Jasper when they ask if they can finish the show first, and leaves them in her house to skin the puppies, threatening to call the police if they aren't done by morning. She finds Horace and Jasper looking for the puppies who escaped the house and they discover their footprints in the snow.

They follow them to Dinsford and Cruella sees black puppies and soon she realizes that they are the puppies in soot when snow falls on them and uncovers their fur. She calls her henchmen to catch them, but they are attacked by the dogs and fall down on the road. Cruella follows the van the puppies ride in, but damages her car in a tree. Enraged, she goes insane in her attempts to catch the puppies and rams the truck they're in to try and knock it off the road, but Horace and Jasper try to do the same thing, but Horace pulls out the wheel and they crash into Cruella's car. Both cars crash down a hill but Cruella and her henchmen are unharmed, but the puppies escape. Cruella cries and yells at Horace and Jasper, who finally tell her to shut up, and they are later arrested.

101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure

Cruella is the main antagonist once again of the film.

In the film she has been released from jail, but has a restraining order and is on probation. Her life in ruins, she tries to calm herself down working with Lars, a German artist. Try as he might however, he cannot please Cruella with his designs, so she decides to help by looking for the Dalmatian puppies again, and find out their address by seeing Patch on the newspaper. She bails Horace and Jasper out of jail to find the puppies, and she hides them in a stolen truck to get to the puppies. The Baduns are able to subdue the Nanny and steal the puppies for Cruella, who aspires to use their fur for a coat. When Lars disagrees, Cruella ties him up and gags him, and turns to her original plan of turning the puppies into a fur coat.

Patch's hero, Thunderbolt, tries to rescue the puppies, but his jealous sidekick Lil' Lightning tricks him into openly attacking Cruella and the Baduns. Cruella captures him and Patch. Lightning reveals Thunderbolt as a fraud, crushing Patch's spirit. The puppies escape but Thunderbolt is too ashamed to follow. The Baduns inform Cruella that the puppies escaped, but Patch tricks them while Thunderbolt frees Lars. The dalmatian puppies escape in a double-decker bus and Cruella chases after them with her henchmen, but Cruella is distracted by Thunderbolt faking a heart attack. Cruella decides to put him out of his misery by killing him, but she accidentally knocks the Baduns unconscious. Patch puts the bus in reverse and Cruella, Lil' Lightning and the Baduns are almost run over and fall into a river. The Baduns are imprisoned while an insane Cruella is dragged into a mental institute, not to be seen again.

After getting locked up

Ultimately, she was visited by Lord Bowser, where she was offered a chance to get the coat that she longed for as well as revenge on those who thwarted her, as long as she pledged her loyalty to him. Which, she did.

Trivia

Her name is a anagram of "Cruel Devil" (Without the "A").
Cruella de Vil ranked 39th on AFI's list "100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains".
Cruella de Vil is the 6th Greatest Disney Villain.
In the DCOM Descendants, she is "whitewashed" by Wendy Raquel Robinson, and her son is Carlos De Vil.
Cruella is similar to Mrs. Tweedy: Both have a hatred for animals, both have henchmen working for them and both are the main antagonists of their films.
She is also similar to Gladys Sharp: Both are animal haters and get arrested at the end of the film, however the only difference between the two is that Cruella is the main antagonist of her film (101 Dalmatians) and Gladys is the secondary antagonist of her film (Over the Hedge).
She is also similar to Wilhelmina Slater: Both are cruel, scheming and manipulating bosses and both are business women.
Cruella became Pooh and Ash's enemy in Pooh's Adventures of 101 Dalmatians.
Cruella became Simba and Alex's enemy in Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa's Adventures of 101 Dalmatians.
Cruella became Danny's enemy in Danny's Adventures of 101 Dalmatians.
Cruella became Yogi Bear's enemy in Yogi Bear's Adventures of 101 Dalmatians.
Cruella became Thomas' enemy in Thomas the tank engine's Adventures of 101 Dalmatians.
Cruella will become Littlefoot's enemy in Littlefoot's Adventures of 101 Dalmatians.
Cruella will become Sora's enemy in Sora's Adventures of 101 Dalmatians. (Despite She already become a Enemy of Sora and His Friends in Some Crossovers Before)
Cruella will become Harry Potter's enemy in Harry, Ron and Hermione's Adventures of 101 Dalmatians.
Cruella will become Aladar's enemy in Aladar's Adventures of 101 Dalmatians.
Cruella will become Bloom and SpongeBob's enemy in Bloom's Adventures of 101 Dalmatians.
Cruella will become Arkayna's enemy in Arkayna's Adventures of 101 Dalmatians.
Cruella will become Brian's enemy in Brian Griffin's Adventures of 101 Dalmatians.
Cruella will become the Fantasy Adventure Team's enemy in Benny, Leo and Johnny's Adventures of 101 Dalmatians.
Cruella will become Connor Lacey's enemy in The Irelanders' Adventures of 101 Dalmatians.
She will be the enemy of Alex Ryan and his Omni-Celtics in Alex Ryan's Adventures of 101 Dalmatians.
Cruella reunited with Jafar, Maleficent, Bowser and the villain army to destroy Pooh, Ash and his friends in the Walt Disney World version of Winnie The Pooh In Fantasmic!.
Cruella returned along with Jafar, Iago, Maleficent, Myotismon, Ursula, Hades, Dr. Facilier, Gaston, the Evil Queen, Scar, Sordan Insane, and the Grand Duke of Owls to work with the "Headless Horseman" to get revenge on Pooh, Ash, Simba, Scooby-Doo, and their friends in Pooh and Ash's Adventures of Scooby-Doo and the Headless Horseman of Halloween.
Cruella returned alongside Hades and the other Disney Villains to get revenge on Pooh and his friends and to take over the Magic Kingdom in Pooh's Adventures of Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom.
Cruella De Vil will make her first guest appearance in a Harry Potter crossover, as well as getting her revenge on Harry Potter and his friends in Harry, Ron and Hermione Meets The Iron Giant.
Cruella returned in Winnie the Pooh vs The Mummy.
Cruella will get her revenge on Pooh and his friends again in Pooh's Adventures of 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure, Pooh's Adventures of Problem Child, Pooh's Adventures of Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, Pooh's Adventures of Under Wraps, Pooh's Adventures of Rugrats Go Wild and Winnie the Pooh Gets Home Alone.
Cruella makes her debut with The Evil Schemers in Pooh's Adventures of The Torchlighters: The Mary Slessor Story.
She will get revenge on Alex Ryan, his Omni-Celtics and his friends in Alex Ryan's Adventures of Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom.
In the first live-action remake of 101 Dalmatians and its sequel 102 Dalmatians she was played by Glenn Close (who also played Kala in Tarzan).
Emma Stone played her in a live-action spin-off/prequel film simply titled Cruella.
Scooby-Doo somehow formed a deep hatred towards Cruella because of her fur obsession and her desire to kill Dalmatian puppies just to make coats out of them. His deep hatred towards her is clearly hinted that whenever he looks at Cruella, he would growl viciously at her.
She will be the enemy of Ryan Freestar and his team in Ryan's Adventures of 101 Dalmatians.

Gallery

From Descendants (2015)

From Descendants (2015)
Cruella in "101 Dalmatian Street" Season Climax.

Cruella in "101 Dalmatian Street" Season Climax.