Read more about Cruella de Vil at: Wikipedia Official Site: Disney Cruella de Vil is a fictional character and the iconic villain in Dodie Smith's 1956 novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians, Disney's 1961 animated film adaptation One Hundred and One Dalmatians, and Disney's live-action film adaptations 101 Dalmatians and 102 Dalmatians. In all her incarnations, Cruella kidnaps dalmatian puppies for their fur. In the live-action version, it is revealed that the reason Cruella chooses to skin puppies is that when short-haired dogs grow older their fur becomes very coarse, which does not sell as well in the fur fashion industry as the fine, soft fur of puppies. Cruella de Vil ranked 39 on AFI's list "100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains". Cruella's name is a play on the words cruel and devil, an allusion which is emphasized by having her country house be nicknamed "Hell Hall". In some translations, Cruella De Vil is known as "Cruella De Mon" to change the play on the word "devil" to one on "demon" because the word "devil" in some languages does not have a clear meaning. An example is Italy, where she is called "Crudelia De Mon" (a pun on "crudele", cruel, and "demone", demon). In the French translation of the Disney's animated movie, she is referred as "Cruella D'Enfer" (Literally, Cruella of Hell or from Hell). In some languages (such as Spanish) where her last name has been left as De Vil, but is not similar to their equivalent of devil, it is taken to be a play on their equivalent of "vile" or "villain". Spelled out as one word; cruelladevil, taken as Cruel Devil. In the original story, Cruella is a pampered London heiress who knows the owner of the Dalmatian puppies through school. She was a notorious student with black and white plaits. She was later expelled for drinking ink. Now she is the last of her prosperous and notorious family and married to a furrier who supplies her obsession, such as the one piece she is never seen without; a white mink cloak. With this, she wears skin-tight satin gowns and ropes of jewels in contrasting colors, such as an emerald color dress with ropes of rubies. Her chauffeur-driven car is black-and-white striped (Mr. Dearly comments that it looks like "a moving zebra crossing") and has the loudest horn in London, which she insists on displaying to the Dearly family. Such dramatic luxuries were said to be based on Tallulah Bankhead's lavish spending habits, which the producers of the film first read about in a newspaper.
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Cruella de Vil
