Cruella De Vil (Disney)

"Darling, I live for fur, I WORSHIP FUR!""

- 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.

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, selfish, 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 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 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, not to be seen again.

101 Dalmatians
Main article: Cruella De Vil (101 Dalmatians Films)

102 Dalmations: Puppies to the Rescue
Unlike the 102 Dalmations movie, she tries capture all the pets in England to sell them outside London, with help from one of her henchman like Professor Fastboom. She appears as a boss three times and lastly the final boss in the game.

Kingdom Keepers
In the novel series, Kingdom Keepers, Cruella is one of the main Disney villains called the Overtakers, and their plan is to take over all of the Disney parks. (at night, all of the characters and attractions in Disney World and Disneyland come to life) Cruella is the Evil Queen's right hand woman and a nuisance. She was not as dangerous and scary as Chernabog, Jafar, Judge Claude Frollo, the Evil Queen, Ursula and Maleficent, but she was still dangerous. She threatened to burn one of the Kingdom Keeper kids' face with a cigarette.

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.
 * 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.