Evil Queen (Disney) based on Queen
The Evil Queen, also known as the Wicked Queen, Queen Grimhilde, or just the Queen, is a fictional character who appears as the main antagonist in Walt Disney Productions' first animated feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and remains a villain character in their extended Snow White franchise. She is based on the Evil Queen character from the 1812 German fairy tale "Snow White".
In the film, similar to the Brothers Grimm story it is based on, the Evil Queen is cold, sadistic, cruel, and extremely vain, owning a magic mirror, and obsessively desiring to remain the "fairest in the land". She becomes madly envious over the beauty of her stepdaughter, Princess Snow White, as well as the attentions of the Prince from another land; such love triangle element is one of Disney's changes to the story. This leads her to plot the death of Snow White and ultimately on the path to her own demise, which in the film is indirectly caused by the Seven Dwarfs. The film's version of the Queen character uses her dark magic powers to actually transform herself into an old woman instead of just taking a disguise like in the Grimms' story; this appearance of hers is commonly referred to as the Wicked Witch or alternatively as the Old Hag or just the Witch in the stepmother's disguised form. The Queen dies in the film, but lives on in a variety of non-canonical Disney works.
The film's version of the Queen was created by Walt Disney and Joe Grant, and originally animated by Art Babbitt and voiced by Lucille La Verne. Inspiration for her design came from the characters of Queen Hash-a-Motep from She and Princess Kriemhild from Die Nibelungen. The Queen has since been voiced by Eleanor Audley, June Foray, Janet Waldo, Eda Reiss Merin, Louise Chamis and Susanne Blakeslee, and was portrayed live by Anne Francine (musical), Jane Curtin (50th anniversary TV special), Olivia Wilde (Disney Dream Portraits), and Kathy Najimy (Descendants).
This version of the fairy tale character has been very well received by film critics and the public, and is considered one of Disney's most iconic and menacing villains. Besides in the film, the Evil Queen has made numerous appearances in Disney attractions and productions, including not only these directly related to the tale of Snow White, such as Fantasmic!, The Kingdom Keepers and Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, sometimes appearing in them alongside Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty. The film's version of the Queen has also become a popular archetype that influenced a number of artists and non-Disney works.Conception, design and portrayal
Walt Disney changed the Queen from Snow White's biological mother in the Brothers Grimm story into her stepmother. Early concepts for the film called for a "fat, batty, cartoon type, self-satisfied" Queen. However, Disney became concerned that such an approach would make the character seem less plausible. Sensing that more time was needed for the development of the Queen, he advised that attention be paid exclusively to "scenes in which only Snow White, the Dwarfs, and their bird and animal friends appear." Disney further developed the main plot himself (Ollie Johnston said the film's story was based on the idea that the Queen's character was going to murder "another drawing" and Disney decided to make it appear believable), finding a dilemma in the characterization of the Queen, whom he envisioned as a mixture of Lady Macbeth and the Big Bad Wolf, and decided to set on "a high collar stately beautiful type" whose "beauty is sinister, mature, plenty of curves – she becomes ugly and menacing when scheming." According to a description in her card in the Disney Villains set, "the Witch's ugliness symbolises the evil disguised by the Queen's beauty."The Queen's appearance was inspired by the "ageless ice goddess" character of Queen Ayesha ("She who must be obeyed") from the 1935 film She, played by Helen Gahagan. The Queen, who was originally to be named Grimhilde (but who is never actually named in the film), was also modeled in part on Princess Kriemhild in the 1924 film Die Nibelungen. The Queen's face may have been inspired by Joan Crawford and also Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Gale Sondergaard. Her costume and figure may have been inspired by a column statue at the Naumburg Cathedral depicting Uta von Ballenstedt, the wife of Eckard II, Margrave of Meissen who was widely regarded as the most beautiful woman of Medieval Germany. Also noted was her resemblance to two 1930s American movie stars from Europe, Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich. The Queen and Snow White were refined by Grim Natwick and Norm Ferguson, who would often override Walt Disney's instructions. As in the case of other characters for the film, the Queen's appearance had to be approved by Albert Hurter before being finalised. One pre-final version of the queen had her wear a looser hood and a different crown and the edge of her cape was fur trimmed, as it can be seen in Gustaf Tenggren's pictures.Unlike much of Disney's animation of human characters in this period, none of Art Babbitt's lead animation work on the character was rotoscoped. The animators were noted to prefer to draw the Queen over Snow White "because she was more real and complex as a woman, more erotic, and driven to desperate acts by her magic mirror." The character, however, turned out to be especially problematic for the animators, as she had to be "regally beautiful, with confined but graceful movements," and "the experiments on her lovely cruel mouth and eyes alone represent drawings enough to fill a paper house." The sequence of her transformation in particular was the film's toughest to visualise using trick effects, especially since Disney insisted on showing how the Queen felt as she changed.
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