Cruella De Vil (Disney)

"I warn you Anita, we're through, I'm through with all of you!""

- Cruella de Vil

Cruella de Vil is the primary antagonist in the 1961 animated film, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, the 1996 live-action film, 101 Dalmatians, and the book of the same name that inspired both. She is portrayed by Betty Lou Gerson in the animated film and Glenn Close in the live-action adaption.Cruella De Vil loves furs and is obsessed with them. She is known to be greedy, spoiled, and unkind.

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 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 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 sudbue 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 accidently 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.

101 Dalmatians
In the live-action remake of the animated film, Cruella de Vil is the head of the London fashion house called House of De Vil. Anita Dearly is one of Cruella's employees and hinted to be her best fashion designer. Cruella first took interest in the Dalmatian puppies when Anita drew spots on one of the designs. Cruella has another henchman, named Mr. Skinner, who skins and kills puppies for the designs. Cruella sent her henchmen to capture the puppies, but they fail thanks to the intervention of the farm animals. Cruella herself then went after the puppies after her henchmen were defeated, and located the puppies to the farm. She tried to kill them but fell victim to the farm animals, who managed to trick and outwit her and defeated her by knocking her into mud. Cruella was later arrested for her crimes.

102 Dalmatians
Through experimental hypnosis, Cruella has seemingly been released of her obsession of furs and now loves puppies and has decided to get rid of her fashion house because the clothes are made out of fur. While visitting Chloe Simon, one of the puppies nearly falls out the window and while Chloe and the other puppies try to rescue her, Cruella hears the chimes of Big Ben and she reverts back to her original obsession with spots, seeing black spots everywhere and she now wants 102 Dalmatian puppies for her designs. She enlists the help of another fashion designer named Jean-Pierre Le Pelt and an unwilling butler named Alonso. She frames the owner of the animal selter Kevin Sheppard for kidnapping the puppies and he is arrested. He escapes from jail and tries to help Chloe rescue the puppies, but they are trapped by Cruella. The puppies escape and Cruella tries to capture them, and at the same time Alonso redeems himself by defeating Jean-Pierre Le Pelt and freeing Chloe and Kevin while Cruella is defeated by getting baked in a cake. The police come and arrest her and Le Pelt.

Trivia

 * Her name is a speudonym of "Cruel Devil".