Cinderella's Father

Richard also known Cinderella's father was a good-natured, handsome, and wealthy gentleman, possibly a baron or lord or duke or a count, in Disney's 1950 animated feature film Cinderella.
==Appearances==
===Cinderella (1950 film)===
Years before the events of the film, Cinderella's father, a wealthy gentleman, lived in his family's château, and had a daughter - Cinderella - with his first wife. After losing his wife of unknown causes when Cinderella was very young, he tried to compensate for the loss by giving Cinderella countless gifts and luxuries, including Bruno, a bloodhoud, and Major, a horse, for his daughter. It is also theorized that Bruno and Major originally belonged to him and were left in Cinderella's care after his death.
However, Cinderella's father still felt that his daughter needed a maternal figure in her life and decided to remarry, with his second wife being fellow noble and widow Lady Tremaine, an elegant and dignified woman, who had, from a previous marriage, two daughters just Cinderella's age: Anastasia and Drizella. However, shortly thereafter, Cinderella's father died untimely, and his second wife and stepdaughters revealed their true nature: cold, cruel, and heartless. Lady Tremaine, who did not even pretend to mourn his passing, and who inherited all his wealth and his château, was jealous of her stepdaughter being more beautiful than her own daughters, and spend her late second husband's inheritance upon Anastasia and Drizella. Meanwhile, Cinderella was mistreated by her stepfamily, eventually being forced into servitude within the château. Despite having to endure her cold, unloving stepfamily, Cinderella kept her kind, positive nature and finally found the happiness she sought simply by keeping faith in her dreams years alter, when she married Prince Charming.
===Cinderella (2015 film)===
In the 2015 live-action remake, he is played by Ben Chaplin. His role in it is expanded.
As a reference to the Brothers Grimm's version of the story, here he is portrayed being a merchant rather than a nobleman. He loved his family dearly and brought tributes from his business trips abroad for his daughter, Ella, when he returned. One was a lavender-and-pink toy butterfly, which was particularly cherished by her.
He seemed to be more heartbroken than Ella was when his wife died, being described as "much changed" by the narrator, and by the time Ella was a young woman, he appeared to have to use a cane to get by. After ensuring Ella's blessing and approval, he married Lady Tremaine, partly out of a desire to have a second chance at happiness, and partly to give Ella a new family to keep her company.
He warmly welcomed his new wife and stepdaughters to his home and was again assured that his decision was accurate after Lady Tremaine presented the convincing appearance of being fine with his late wife's memory, and rebuked Anastasia for a particularly rude comment about his home. However, he grew to have little to no interest in Lady Tremaine's attempts to restore life and laughter to there (hosting parties to which even the nobility were invited, where fine wines flowed and were consumed in excess, and everyone played cards and gambled), stating that they were nothing special, being all the same. He also appeared to have to leave on more and more trips to keep up with the increasing expenses.
On the night before he left on what was to be - unbeknownst to everyone, including himself - his very last trip, he had a heart-to-heart chat with Ella, in which he started off by asking what gift she would like him to bring her back from abroad. As another reference to Grimm, she requested him to bring her the first branch that brushed his shoulder on his journey. When he remarked at her strange request, she explained that he would have to keep it with him and think of her, and when he brought it to her, it will mean that he will return it, which was what she genuinely wanted: for him to come home to her no matter what.
At this, they share a hug, and he assures her that he will return. He also tells her to be kind to her stepfamily, though he acknowledges that they could be "trying at times". He assures her that he will always leave a part of him with the house, and her mother is always present, though she could not see her, and that what why they must always cherish the house for her, for she is the very heart of it. They conclude their chat by confessing and confiding in each other as to how much they still miss her. Most, unfortunately, Lady Tremaine overheard the conversation and was stung to the core by it.
While he was away, her sole comfort was his letters, especially given Lady Tremaine's subtle abuse of her.
However, one afternoon, she received the most terrible news: he took ill on the journey and passed away. Till the end, he spoke only of Ella and her mother, and the farmer who delivered the news was told to give her what was an irrefutable testament of his love for her: the tree branch that he had promised her. The combination of this testament, her stepfamily's misdirected grief over his passing, and the knowledge that she was now effectively orphaned caused her to break down.
Though things turned for the worst for her - being forced to become the servant of her own house and spitefully renamed "Cinderella", she utterly cherished the memory of him along with her mother. When asked by one of her former servants as to why she stayed in the house when her stepfamily abused her so badly, she answers that she had promised her parents to cherish it where they were so happy. They had loved it, and now that they are gone, she loves it for them and acknowledges it as her home.
During the first - and last - heart-to-heart confrontation between Ella and Lady Tremaine, the latter acknowledged that her marriage to the former's father had been for the sake of her daughters, but she was still unbearably jealous of his love for Ella (his biological daughter). Despite knowing her stepmother's cruelty well, and her one and only chance of happiness was at stake (her glass slipper being in her stepmother's hands), Ella refused to relent to her demands, confessing that one of her greatest regrets was failing to protect her father from Lady Tremaine. Even after Lady Tremaine shattered the slipper and locked her in her room, her spirit was unbroken, as she drew strength and comfort from positive memories - such as the happy times she shared with her parents.
In the end, it was revealed that a royal portrait of him had been painted along with his wife, and Ella remarked that her and Kit's parents would have loved one another.
===Once Upon a Time===
Marcus Tremaine is the husband of Rapunzel and the father of Anastasia and Drizella. One night, the starving family are traveling through the forest. Desperate for food and because Marcus is sick, Rapunzel breaks into the garden of the witch Mother Gothel. Gothel catches Rapunzel rummaging through the garden and offers her a deal to save her family. However, unbeknownst to Rapunzel, the deal requires her to be locked away in a tower. After finding her damaged cloak, which was planted by Gothel to deceive him, Marcus believes Rapunzel dead and moves on with his life.
Eventually, Marcus marries Cecelia, Ella's mother, and though he is not Ella's birth father, he becomes the only father she knows. On the wedding day, Cecelia gifts him a locket that matches her own, and both lockets glow as a symbol of their love for each other so they can always find one another.
Rapunzel continues to be locked away in the tower, until one day six years later when she manages to escape and finds her way to a manor where Marcus and her daughters now live. After Rapunzel reunites with Anastasia and Drizella, Marcus comes out, astonished to see his former wife returned. This is further complicated when Rapunzel learns he remarried; leaving her heartbroken. Marcus and Cecelia continue to raise Anastasia and Drizella, while Rapunzel lives in the manor as their servant, allowed to stay in order to have a relationship with her daughters. While his daughters are having afternoon tea with Rapunzel, Marcus arrives to pick them up. Rapunzel privately shares concerns about Drizella's distant behavior with her, but he tries to assure her that Drizella just needs time, as she was very young when Rapunzel disappeared. Later, Marcus returns Rapunzel's old cloak to her. Rapunzel asks if he still loves her, and Marcus admits he does, however, he insists he is committed to Cecelia and Ella now. During Drizella's birthday party, Rapunzel becomes increasingly jealous of Cecelia, who has earned favoritism from Drizella. She is given a poisonous mushroom by Gothel, who instructs her to place it in Cecelia's drink if she wishes to drive the woman away and regain her place in the family. Rapunzel initially refuses the offer, until Drizella's birthday party where her jealousy reaches a breaking point, during which she places the poison in Cecelia's beverage. Cecelia's heart becomes cursed, prompting her to run away to New Wonderland to protect them from her. He uses his locket to track her to that realm's Infinite Maze, but before he can go in, his locket stops glowing. After one year, the man then gives on finding her, out of the belief she has stopped loving him and he changes because of losing her.
Later on a wintery day, Marcus and Rapunzel take the three girls out by a frozen pond where they build a snowman. Rapunzel comments on how much the girls truly look like sisters, while Marcus expresses gratitude towards her for all that she's done for their family thus far. As the pair become engrossed with each other, the snowman's hat flies onto the ice and Ella goes to retrieve it, not noticing the ice cracking beneath her. Anastasia goes out to warn her and the ice breaks, taking the two girls underneath the freezing water. Marcus dives in after them but is only able to retrieve Ella as Anastasia almost dies. Rapunzel becomes angry with Marcus for choosing to save their stepdaughter over their "real daughter." With help from Gothel, Anastasia's last breath is preserved in her lungs, leaving her in a state between life and death.
As she eventually becomes known as Lady Tremaine, Rapunzel grows bitter with Marcus over Anastasia's death and goes on to conspire with a prince to murder him; resulting in his death. Ella, not knowing her stepmother's involvement in her father's death, vows revenge on the prince but later finds out the truth from Tiana about her stepmother's involvement in killing Marcus.
===Cold Hearted===
In Serena Valentino's eighth novel exploring Lady Tremaine's past, he, named Sir Richard in this adaptation, appears as a sinister character. He married Lady Tremaine for her inheritance from her first husband. Although he married her to also provide Cinderella with a mother, he forbids her to call Lady Tremaine "Mama" as she wishes. He never truly recovered from his wife's death, as he prioritizes her memory over the happiness of his new wife, insisting his late wife as the true mistress of the house regardless of who else he marries, and forbidding Lady Tremaine any sort of say in how she lives as his wife. He is still shown to love his daughter, but in a disturbing way, as he pampers her yet still expects obediance from her. He neglects and abuses his new wife and stepdaughters, making them do household chores while prioritizing his own daughter, not allowing Anastasia and Drizella to present at court with her as they near the proper age to come out. When Cinderella hears that her stepmother plans to leave, she innocently tells her father, thinking she is just being a good daughter, and Sir Richard yells at Lady Tremaine and locks her in her room. This finally pushes Lady Tremaine over the edge, and she enlists the help of dark magic to kill Sir Richard and take back control of her life, as well as turn Cinderella into a servant just as her father did to them, to punish her for telling her father and ruining any chance to escape him non-lethally.
==Trivia==
*According to Disney Villains: The Top Secret Files, Lady Tremaine is reading an ad from Cinderella's father, which refers to him as Lord Tremaine, meaning Cinderella's last name is also Tremaine. This makes sense, since in the old days the new bride and her children would sometimes take the husband's last name. However, this information is contradicted in the 2015 live-action remake, which refers to Lady Tremaine's first husband as Sir Francis Tremaine.
**It is also possible that Sir Francis' title was passed to Lady Tremaine (being she the mother of his daughters and heiresses), and when Cinderella's father married her, he became Lord Tremaine by marriage (because not all titles have the same name than the owner's surname).
*Considering his death was untimely and happened suddenly, along with Lady Tremaine's power-hungry, cruel, and manipulative nature, it is possible Cinderella's father was actually murdered by Lady Tremaine; however, nothing in the film suggests this and it is taken as canon that he died a natural death, possibly because of a disease, or he got killed in an accident.
**The possibility of Lady Tremaine's possible involvement on his death, however, is possibly backed up in Cinderella III: A Twist in Time, because when Anastasia realizes what is love, Lady Tremaine dismisses her discovery by saying that love isn't necessary when they could have power, possibly meaning that she just married Cinderella's father for his power and wealth and killed him once he outlived his usefulness.
**Despite this, at least in the 2015 live-action remake, it's stated that Cinderella's father didn't die due to Lady Tremaine's fault and rather contracted an illness and passed away. Even Lady Tremaine laments his death in that version of the story, as the film shows that she actually loved him at least a bit after her first husband's death. However, this doesn't seem likely since she was seen smiling at his death.
*Cinderella's father bears similarity to Snow White's in the storybooks: both are widowers who were hit hard by the loss of their wives and remarry out of a desire for family stability; however, both fail to realize (for reasons beyond their power) that their choices put their daughters at a disadvantage.
*The full name of Cinderella's father is unknown.
*There is a deleted scene from the 2015 live-action remake, where after his death, Lady Tremaine sells all of his possessions to a merchant, including a paper butterfly toy he gave to Ella as a gift when she was a child, and Ella rushed to retrieve it, even offering to buy it back from the merchant, but he allows her to keep it for free.
==Gallery==
Cindrella's Father (Storybook).jpg|Storybook drawing
Cinderella Happy Family.png|Cinderella and her father in the prologue.
Cinderell-2015-disneyscreencaps.com-86.jpg
Cinderella-22.jpg|Cinderella's father with his family in the 2015 film.
Cinderell-2015-disneyscreencaps.com-696.jpg
Cinderella and her father.jpg
Cinderella father in golden book.jpg|Cinderella's father in the 1952 Golden Book.
== Variants ==
*Marcus Tremaine
*Rosie Morales
*Ella's Father (Cinderella 2015)
es:El Padre de Cenicienta
it:Padre di Cenerentola
ja:シンデレラの父
pl:Ojciec Kopciuszka
pt-br:Pai de Cinderela
ru:Отец Золушки
vi:Cha của Lọ Lem
Category:Disney characters
Category:Males
Category:Cinderella characters
Category:Lovers
Category:Deceased characters
Category:Widows/Widowers
Category:Adults
Category:Spouses
Category:Animated characters
Category:Parents
Category:Live-action characters
Category:Characters in the Disney animated features canon
Category:Silent characters
Category:Nobility
Category:Stepparents