The White-Turkish•Angora-Cat Duchess

**Duchess** is the protagonist of Disney's 1970 animated film, *The Aristocats*. She is the mother of Marie, Berlioz, and Toulouse.

## Media Acting Users

### Somehow Entirely Voiced by

Eva Gabor - Her Normal VoiceRobie Lester - Her Singing Voice

## Loves And Hates

### DisLikes

Being separated from her children, The Milkman, Edgar Balthazar

## Physical Appearance Description

### Powers With Abilities / Skills And Talents \ InBorns Plus InNates

Cat-instincts, Humility and modesty, Night vision, Gifted singer, Harp proficiency, Elegance and gracefulness, Feminine charm, Positive influence

## Known Media Appearances

### Somehow Entirely Voiced by

Eva Gabor - Her Normal VoiceRobie Lester - Her Singing Voice

## Background

### Personality

Duchess is very elegant, beautiful, and ladylike, being the pet to an aristocrat. She is very devoted to her owner, Madame Adelaide Bonfamille. She is kind and friendly to everyone. She is both caring and protective toward her children and also tries to encourage them to develop into proper members of French society. She also is a connoisseur of music and presumably teaches her kittens to sing and play the piano. **Duchess also is shown to be slightly pacifistic, as she scolds her kittens for "play-fighting". She is sweet and compassionate and is willing and able to make friends with anyone, no matter their background. She also seems to show concern for others, as is evidenced when she calls out to Thomas O'Malley as he floats down the river after he throws Marie to safety.**

### Physical appearance

Duchess is a long-haired purebred white Turkish Angora cat with blue eyes later described as shining like sapphires. She wears a gold, jeweled collar studded with diamonds.

## Biography

### The Aristocats (1970)

Duchess and her three kittens Marie, Berlioz, and Toulouse, live in a large mansion in 1910 Paris with their owner Madame Adelaide Bonfamille, a retired opera singer. At the beginning of the film, the family is returning from a carriage ride. Back home, Duchess oversees Toulouse's painting lesson and Marie and Berlioz's music lesson. Later, Madame Bonfamille meets with her lawyer and dear friend, Georges Hautecourt. After kissing Duchess's tail (which the lawyer believes to be Madame Bonfamille's hand), they settle down to business. Madame reveals that, after her death, she intends to leave her vast fortune to Duchess and her kittens. At the end of their lifespan, Madame's butler, Edgar would inherit. Edgar overhears, and plots to remove the cats from the inheritance, as he believes he would die before getting to inherit. **That night, Duchess and the kittens are drugged using milk mixed with sleeping pills. Edgar catnaps Duchess and her kittens and leaves them in the French countryside so that Madame Adelaide would think the cats had run away so that she could give the entire fortune to himself. After Edgar flees back to Paris following a scuffle with two feral dogs, Duchess and her kittens awake to very unfamiliar surroundings, and endure a frightening and rainy night together in the basket they were transported in. The next morning, Duchess meets Thomas O'Malley, an alley cat, who offers to guide them back to Paris. They have difficulties returning to the city, briefly hitchhiking on the back of a milk cart before being chased off by the driver. Marie subsequently falls into a river and is saved by Thomas. They then meet a pair of English geese, Abigail and Amelia Gabble, who are traveling for Paris. The group heads off, marching like geese until they reach Paris and come across the girls' drunken Uncle Waldo. Abigail and Amelia then depart to take Waldo home.** Traveling across the rooftops of the city, the cats meet Scat Cat and his band, close friends to O'Malley, who perform the song "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat". After the band has departed and the kittens lie in bed, O'Malley and Duchess spend the evening on a nearby rooftop and talk, while the kittens listen at a windowsill. O'Malley offers to have Duchess stay and be with him, but she sadly turns him down, largely out of loyalty to Madame Adelaide. **The next morning, Duchess and the kittens make it back to the mansion, whereupon O'Malley departs sadly. Edgar sees Duchess and kittens coming and captures them, placing them in a sack hidden in an oven. Duchess tells Roquefort to pursue O'Malley and get help. He does so, whereupon O'Malley races back to the mansion, ordering Roquefort to find Scat Cat and his gang. Edgar places the cats in a trunk which he plans to send to Timbuktu, Africa. O'Malley, Scat Cat and his gang of Alley Cats, and Frou Frou all fight Edgar, while Roquefort frees Duchess and the kittens. In the end, Edgar is tipped into the trunk, locked inside, and sent to Timbuktu himself. Madame Adelaide's will is rewritten to exclude Edgar and include O'Malley and any future kittens he and Duchess have. Madame also starts a charity foundation providing a home for all of Paris's stray cats. The grand opening thereof, to which most of the major characters come, features Scat Cat's band, who perform a reprise of "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat".**

## Trivia

* Like Lady in *Lady and the Tramp*, Duchess marries a street smart individual at the end of her story. The contrast is all of the puppies (including Scamp) are biological to Lady herself and Tramp while O'Malley became a stepfather to the three kittens at the end of their story.
* She was voiced by the late Eva Gabor, who also voiced Miss Bianca in *The Rescuers* and it's sequel.
* Some of Duchess' dance moves were infamously reused for that of Maid Marian's in *Robin Hood*.
* Duchess bears some resemblance to Mewsette from the Warner Bros/UPA film, *Gay Purr-ee,* which coincidentally also featured talking cats in Paris, France.
* It is possible that after marrying Thomas O'Malley, Duchess' full name now appears to be Duchess Bonfamille-O'Malley.
* It is likely that Duchess's first mate (the father of her litter) had either orange and/or black fur, due to Toulouse and Berlioz having those fur colors.
* Her name means wife or woman of a duke who has the same equivalent rights to be a monarch ruling over a duchy or a member of the nobility.
* After she and her kids are trapped by Edgar, Duchess has no more lines but can be heard laughing at Toulouse as he taunts Edgar who is being taken to Timbuktu for his punishment.
* Duchess is the first main protagonist to be a single parent, in most other cases they are the hero and heroine's parent.
* In animatics for the cancelled sequel, *The Aristocats II*, Duchess was voiced by the late voice actress Russi Taylor.
* Duchess is the only cat that doesn't wear a ribbon.
	+ In one comic, her personality slightly differs from that of her in the movie, where she can be seen punishing her kittens, instead of telling them from wrong to right.
		- And in another comic, she can be seen attacking some alley cats, but only to save Thomas O'Malley from them.
* Duchess may be an inspiration for Mama Cat from Don Bluth’s Banjo the Woodpile Cat.

## What Makes Her Pure Good?

* She’s quite kind-hearted to people.
* She cared about her children.
* She's always looking out for others.