Lady Tremaine facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Lady Tremaine |
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Lady Tremaine as she appears in Disney's Cinderella
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| First appearance | Cinderella (1950) |
| Created by | Frank Thomas |
| Portrayed by | Cate Blanchett (2015 film) Linda Ko (Descendants 3) |
| Voiced by |
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| Based on | The Wicked Stepmother from Charles Perrault's fairy tale |
| Information | |
| Nickname(s) | Madame Tremaine |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | Socialite |
| Affiliation | Disney villains |
| Title | The Wicked Stepmother |
| Family | Cinderella (step-daughter) Anastasia and Drizella Tremaine (daughters) Prince Charming (step-son-in-law) The Baker (son-in-law) Anthony Tremaine (grandson, Descendants) Dizzy Tremaine (granddaughter, Descendants) |
| Spouse(s) | Cinderella's father (deceased) Sir Francis Tremaine (deceased) |
Lady Tremaine is a fictional character who appears in Walt Disney Productions' 12th animated feature film, Cinderella (1950) and its sequels Cinderella II: Dreams Come True (2002) and Cinderella III: A Twist in Time (2007). In the original film, Lady Tremaine is voiced by American actress Eleanor Audley, who would later voice Maleficent, the evil fairy, in Sleeping Beauty (1959). For the sequels and subsequent film and television appearances, Audley was succeeded by American actress Susanne Blakeslee. She is given the title of Lady in the original film (her first and maiden name unknown).
Lady Tremaine treats Cinderella, her step-daughter, like a scullery maid and focuses all of her attention on her own two daughters, Anastasia and Drizella. She is based on The Wicked Stepmother character from the original fairytale by Charles Perrault. Lady Tremaine was animated by Frank Thomas.
In the 2015 live-action remake of the 1950 animated film, Tremaine is portrayed by Cate Blanchett and is given a backstory where she hears Ella's father say that he loved his first wife more. This explains her hatred toward Cinderella.
Contents
Appearances
Cinderella (1950)
In the animated film, where she is voiced by Eleanor Audley, Lady Tremaine is introduced in the prologue of the film. Cinderella's father, a widower anxious for his daughter to have a mother figure, married Lady Tremaine, whom the narrator describes as "a woman of good family". She was a widow herself, with two daughters from her first marriage. After an unspecified amount of time living happily together as a family, Cinderella's father tragically died and Lady Tremaine revealed her true colors. She lets the chateau fall into disrepair while pampering her own selfishly spoiled daughters and forcing Cinderella to become a maid in her own home. Lady Tremaine allows Cinderella to attend the Royal Ball, on the condition that Cinderella finishes all her chores and finds a suitable dress. When Cinderella actually finishes her work and appears ready for the Ball in a suitable dress, Lady Tremaine mildly mentions the beads and sash that Jaq and Gus found after Anastasia and Drizella threw them out. Enraged, her daughters cruelly tear apart Cinderella's dress, leaving her unable to attend the ball. When Cinderella, with the help of a Fairy Godmother, nevertheless attends the ball, her stepfamily does not recognize her, but Lady Tremaine notes a familiarity about her appearance as she dances with Prince Charming.
News promptly arrives by way of a Royal Proclamation that the Prince will marry the girl whose foot fits the glass slipper accidentally left behind by Cinderella at the ball. Lady Tremaine overhears Cinderella dreamily humming the song "So This is Love" as she heads to the attic, and realizes that she was the mysterious girl at the ball. Hoping to pass off one of her daughters as the mysterious girl, Lady Tremaine follows Cinderella up to the attic and locks her in her room, putting the key in her pocket. However, two of Cinderella's mice friends, Gus and Jaq, steal the key from the stepmother's pocket (after Lady Tremaine almost boils Gus in a tea cup) and succeed in returning the key to Cinderella, who rushes downstairs to the Grand Duke just as he and the footman are about to leave. Lady Tremaine attempts to convince the Duke that Cinderella is merely a lowly scullery maid who did not even attend the ball. But the Duke, who is required by the King's Royal Proclamation not to skip a single maiden in the kingdom on his quest for the mysterious girl the Prince danced with, solemnly rebuffs Lady Tremaine. The Duke also finds Cinderella strikingly familiar to him. He proceeds to try the glass slipper on Cinderella. In a last-ditch effort to foil Cinderella's dreams, Lady Tremaine trips the footman bearing the glass slipper, causing it to smash. She deviously grins with wicked satisfaction as the Duke wails in despair and fear of the King's reaction when he finds out that the slipper was broken. But Cinderella still manages to come out on top by revealing that she has the other slipper, and that it fits her foot, proving that she is the girl who danced with Prince Charming, much to her stepmother's appalled horror. Beyond a single brief close-up of her appalled face, the movie does not dwell on her defeat, how she and her daughters further reacted or what happened to them; instead there is only a quick resolution where Cinderella is shown as the Prince's happy bride, her stepfamily out of the picture.
Cinderella II: Dreams Come True
In this film, where she is voiced by Susanne Blakeslee, Lady Tremaine only appeared in the An Uncommon Romance segment, where Anastasia has to go against her mother for the first time. A likable, slightly plump humble baker falls in love with Anastasia, as does she with him. Lady Tremaine and Drizella do everything they can to thwart this romance, but Cinderella encourages Anastasia to follow her own heart (which she does).
Cinderella III: A Twist in Time
Lady Tremaine's latest animated appearance is in this film, where she is once again voiced by Blakeslee. This time, she acquires the Fairy Godmother's magic wand after Anastasia finds it. Lady Tremaine, strangely still bent on ruining Cinderella's life (in what she believes to be revenge) then uses the wand to reverse time to undo Cinderella's "happily ever after"; she manipulates the glass slipper to fit Anastasia so that Cinderella never gets to try on the slipper herself, then she brainwashes the Prince into forgetting Cinderella and marrying Anastasia. When Cinderella tries to set things right, Lady Tremaine thwarts her efforts, aided by the magic wand. Ultimately, Anastasia is her mother's undoing; feeling guilty about marrying someone she does not love and who does not love her, she rejects the Prince at the altar, to Cinderella's amazement. Furious at Anastasia's sudden conscience, and still intent on fulfilling her desire for revenge on Cinderella, Lady Tremaine emerges from her hiding place and begins turning some of the palace guards into farm animals. She then resolves to destroy Cinderella's happy ending and also get revenge on Anastasia for trying to fix it by turning both of them into toads, but the Prince defends the two from the spell and reflects it back with his sword, turning Lady Tremaine and Drizella into toads instead. Anastasia then gives the magic wand to Cinderella so that she can undo all the wrongs that had been committed. During the end credits, Lady Tremaine and Drizella have been restored, but are wearing scullery clothes identical to those Cinderella used to wear, implying that they will be working in the palace as servants as their punishment for what they've done, screaming much to their horror.
Cinderella (2015)
In this film, Lady Tremaine is portrayed by Cate Blanchett. A woman of grace and refinement, she married Ella's father for the sake of her daughters; shortly after her first husband, Sir Francis Tremaine, died. At first, Lady Tremaine did not seem to bear any particular animosity towards Ella, but her jealousy and spite was incited after overhearing a private conversation in which it was confirmed that her second husband loved his biological daughter more than he did her, and that he still cherished the memory of his first wife. After he died while on a business trip, Lady Tremaine was hurt and jealous that his dying words had only been of Ella and her mother. Revealing her true colors, she takes her jealousy out on Ella, firing all of the servants and forcing Ella to take up most of their duties. She even joins in her daughters' childish taunting of Ella, and mocks her as "Cinderella". When she and her daughters are getting ready to go to the ball, Ella comes downstairs at the last minute, wearing a gown of her mother's. Lady Tremaine rips one of the sleeves and encourages her daughters to help her tear the dress apart. At the ball, she is as mystified as all the other guests when a mysterious girl in a blue gown enraptures Kit (the Fairy Godmother having cast an additional spell to prevent Ella's step-family recognizing her), but realizes that it's really Ella based on her attitude after the ball. The next morning, she discovers a glass slipper hidden in the attic. Knowing that the other slipper will fit Ella, she demands that Ella make her the head of the royal household and to ensure that Drisella and Anastasia find proper husbands. Ella rejects this out of hand, telling her that she isn't about to let Kit fall into her stepmother's clutches after she failed to protect her father. An enraged Lady Tremaine locks Ella in the attic and shatters the slipper. She then blackmails the Grand Duke into ensuring that she will become a countess and that her daughters will get wealthy husbands, in return for keeping the secret so that Kit can be married to a princess from another kingdom, as his father had originally intended. When the Captain finds Ella hidden in the attic, Lady Tremaine initially tells the Captain that as her mother, she will not allow Ella to try it on. Ella curtly tells her that she is not, nor will she ever will be, her mother. Ella leaves with Kit after forgiving her stepmother. The Fairy Godmother narrated that the Tremaines leave the kingdom with the Grand Duke never to return.
Other Appearances
Disney Parks
Lady Tremaine appears as a character that can be found around the Disney theme parks.
Disney's House of Mouse
Aside from the films, Lady Tremaine has also made various appearances on the animated series Disney's House of Mouse; she frequently shares a table with another famous wicked stepmother, the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Lady Tremaine makes an appearance in the Who Framed Roger Rabbit Special Edition DVD in one of the menus.
Cold Hearted: A Tale of the Evil Stepmother
Lady Tremaine is the protagonist in Serena Valentino's upcoming installment in the Disney Villains book franchise.
Twice Charmed: An Original Twist on the Cinderella Story
Lady Tremaine is the antagonist in the Disney Cruise Line Broadway-style stage musical Twice Charmed: An Original Twist on the Cinderella Story.
Disney's Cinderella KIDS
Lady Tremaine is the antagonist in the children's musical Disney's Cinderella KIDS.
Descendants
In Disney Descendants: Isle of the Lost (novel), Lady Tremaine obtains a grandson, Anthony, by one of her children and several granddaughters (referred to as the step-granddaughters) and teaches "Evil 101" on the Isle of the Lost.
Lady Tremaine has a voice cameo in the sequel Descendants 2 as she yells inside her Curl Up and Dye hair salon at her granddaughter Dizzy to be quiet, but the actress that voiced her was uncredited.
She makes a physical appearance in Descendants 3, portrayed by Linda Ko.
Once Upon a Time
Two versions of Lady Tremaine plays a role in the storylines for the 2011 American drama fantasy TV series Once Upon a Time. The first version of Lady Tremaine appears in the sixth season portrayed by Lisa Banes. A second version of Lady Tremaine appears in the seventh and final season portrayed by Gabrielle Anwar with the character amalgamated with Rapunzel.
See also
In Spanish: Lady Tremaine para niños
