Lady Tremaine

Lady Tremaine, the Evil Stepmother, is the villain of Cinderella.

Role in "Cinderella"

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Spoilers end here.

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Lady Tremaine

She is introduced in the prologue of the film. Young Cinderella's father, a widower, anxious for his daughter to have a mother figure, married Lady Tremaine, who is described as a woman of good family, with two daughters of her own (Anastasia and Drizella) and a cat named Lucifer. After Cinderella's father died, Lady Tremaine showed her true colours, pampering her own daughters while forcing Cinderella to become a servant in her own home. After the prologue it is revealed that Cinderella lives in a small room at the top of the tower in her house.

Lady Tremaine allows Cinderella to attend the Royal Ball, on the condition that Cinderella finishes all her chores and finds a suitable dress. She and her daughters then proceed to heap chore after chore on Cinderella. When, despite this, Cinderella appears ready for the Ball in a suitable dress (her mother's, decorated by her mice and bird friends), Lady Tremaine (indirectly but intentionally) causes her daughters to tear apart Cinderella's dress, leaving her unable to attend the ball. When Cinderella, with the help of the Fairy Godmother, nevertheless attends the ball, her stepfamily do not recognise her, but note a familiarity about her as she dances with Prince Charming.

At the news that the Prince will marry the girl whose foot fits in the glass slipper (accidentally left behind by Cinderella at the Ball), Cinderella falls into a dreamlike trance, singing to herself. Lady Tremaine, realising the identity of the mysterious girl at the Ball, quietly follows Cinderella up the tower and locks her in her room, putting the key in her pocket. The Duke then arrives with the glass slipper, which both Anastasia and Drizella attempt to force their feet into. While this is happening (prologued by the stepsisters' repeated attempts to get the slipper to fit their own feet), two mice, Jaq and Gus, steal the key from Lady Tremaine's pocket and bring it to the door of Cinderella's room. Though delayed by Lucifer, the mice succeed in returning the key to Cinderella, who rushes downstairs to the Duke. Lady Tremaine, in bitterness, trips up the servant bearing the glass slipper, causing it to smash. However, Cinderella reveals that she has the other slipper, and that it fits her foot, much to her stepmother's horror.

Behind the Scenes

Lady Tremaine was voiced by Eleanor Audley, who also provided live-action reference for the character. She was animated by Frank Thomas.

Frank Thomas, like all of the character animators for "Cinderella" (excluding Ward Kimball, who animated Lucifer and the Mice), used live-action footage as reference when drawing the frames of animation. Eleanor Audley, dressed as Lady Tremaine, was filmed performing every action the character made; the individual frames from this footage were then placed under tracing paper. The actions were not traced exactly, but used as guidelines. This is perhaps why Lady Tremaine moves in a very human way.

'Whenever we stayed too close to the photostats, or directly copied even a tiny piece of human action, the results looked very strange,' recalled Thomas and fellow animator Ollie Johnston. 'The figure lost the illusion of life.' The live action reference was therefore used primarily to suggest to the animator movements and mannerisms he may not have thought of otherwise. These were then applied to the animated character within their context.

Trivia

• Disney Historian John Culhane once referred to Lady Tremaine as 'the most hated of all the Disney Villains'.
• Walt Disney personally reccomended Eleanor Audley for the voice of Maleficent, the villain in Sleeping Beauty.
• Lady Maudeline Everglot, in Tim Burton's 'Corpse Bride', appears to be a caricature of Lady Tremaine, both in appearance and personality.