Question: was gaston in the original beauty and the beast

Answer: No, An original character who is not present in the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont upon which the film is based, Gaston was inspired by Avenant, a character filmmaker Jean Cocteau created specifically for his 1946 film adaptation of the story. Created by screenwriter Linda Woolverton, who based the character on some of the ex-boyfriends she dated in her past, Gaston was developed specifically for Disney's adaptation of Beauty and the Beast because the studio felt that the film could benefit from a strong villain, who is lacking in the original fairy tale. As the character evolved from a nonthreatening aristocrat into an arrogant man relentlessly seeking Belle's hand in marriage, Gaston ultimately replaced a female relative of Belle's who the filmmakers had originally created to serve as the film's villain.