Cruella: The Real Story

A new film reinvents the fashionable villain of The Hundred and One Dalmatians. But what would Cruella’s creator, Dodie Smith, have made of it? Her biographer, Valerie Grove, gives her opinion

- Valerie Grove

SHE’S a woman so evil she was willing to try abducting 99 puppies so she could kill them and use their fur to create the perfect coat.

When author Dodie Smith created Cruella de Vil, she didn’t want readers to feel sorry for the villainess but rather to be totally horrified by the extent of her narcissism and cruelty.

But Cruella, the new Disney remake of the tale starring Emma Stone, which examines her backstory does exactly the opposite – and after seeing all the traumatic things that happened to the poor woman in childhood you’d have to have a heart of stone not to feel a bit more sympathetic towards her.

But surely if Dodie was still alive she would have hated this new spin that has been put on her famous classic.

Hardly. I think she would have enjoyed the new Cruella movie, which is currently on circuit. She would have relished the revival of her own fame as Cruella’s creator and would have loved the incarnation of Cruella de Vil as a fashion queen.

After all, Dodie once set herself up as a designer of outlandish clothes. In fact she has such a passion for tall, high-crowned hats with feathers, ruff collars, high heels and colourful shawls that the people in the flat opposite hers would watch her dressing and break into applause as she left for work.

She had cards printed that read: “DODIE SMITH, Quaint Clothes for Queer Customers”. But most of all, what she would have loved about the movie is the money – “the Disney lolly”, as it came to be known in her household.