[2] The name Cruella de Vil is a pun of the words cruel and devil, an allusion that is emphasized by having her English country house nicknamed 'Hell Hall'.

[3] 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".

[citation needed] 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,[4] as befits the overprivileged Cruella.

Cruella pursues them, but her love of fire causes her to stop and applaud the spectacle of a bakery burning to the ground, buying the dogs more time.

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.

[9] 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.

In 2002, Forbes ranked Disney's Cruella as the thirteenth wealthiest fiction character, citing the single 65-year-old has a net worth of $875 million, obtained through inheritance.

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.

The film features a song written by Mel Leven, using her name as the title, sung by the Dalmatians' owner Roger (Bill Lee), who holds the woman in contempt.

Her mother Malevola de Vil demands she do this, and Cruella also was denied the farm by old Widow Smedly the first time she tried to buy it, incensing her and beginning her obsession.

Cruella returns in 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure, once again as the main antagonist, where she is now voiced by Susanne Blakeslee due to the death of Betty Lou Gerson.

Cruella's great-nephew, Hunter de Vil, plans to capture the family of Doug and Delilah, descendants of Pongo and Perdita living in Camden Town, and bring them to his great-aunt, now in Switzerland.

Susanne Blakeslee also voiced Cruella in the television series House of Mouse, which featured a running gag in which she inspects dogs from other Disney films with a measuring ruler.

Unlike the animated film, the live-action version provides another reason as to why Cruella wants to make the puppies into coats at a young age: their fur wouldn't be as soft and as fine as when they fully grow up.

Along with Close's performance, Cruella's costumes (by Anthony Powell and Rosemary Burrows) received appreciative attention, including a spread in Vanity Fair.

[14] 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.

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.

Cruella's accomplice this time is French furrier Jean Pierre Le Pelt, who carries out the actual thefts and helps design the coat.

Cruella appears in the fourth, fifth and seventh seasons of the TV series Once Upon a Time, where she is portrayed as an adult by Victoria Smurfit, and as a child by Milli Wilkinson, as a witch who possesses the power to control animals.

In a struggle to prevent the Author from writing another note about her, the vial of magic ink spills on her causing her blonde hair to turn into the iconic black and white.

Rumplestiltskin (Robert Carlyle) recruited her, Ursula (Merrin Dungey) and Maleficent (Kristin Bauer van Straten) to acquire the Dark Curse, but he double-crossed them and left them to be killed by the Chernabog.

Escaping together, Cruella joined the two in trying to get assistance from Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Prince Charming (Josh Dallas) in preventing the Evil Queen (Lana Parrilla) from casting the curse.

Cruella played little importance in the plot, until the Author was released from the book; unable to kill him herself, she pretended to threaten Henry Mills's (Jared S. Gilmore) life to force Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison) and Regina to do so.

Following the heroes' escape back to Storybrooke, Hook teamed up with the deceased King Arthur to locate the storybook so they could tell Emma how to defeat Hades.

Cruella was later dethroned by Arthur who then ruled the Underworld for fifty years as she became a depressed and bitter woman who drank in the local bar with Sir Mordred.

[22] Timbers dropped to direct the live-action Cruella de Vil film due to scheduling conflicts in December 2018 and was replaced with Craig Gillespie.

[23] The following year, Emma Thompson joined the film as Baroness von Hellman,[24] while Tony McNamara and Dana Fox were hired to write the recent version of the screenplay.

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.

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.