49 Fun Facts About Sleeping Beauty

In Disney's Sleeping Beauty, what name do the three good fairies give Aurora while hiding her?

The fairies raise her as a peasant girl called Briar Rose in a woodcutter's cottage deep in the forest, so that Maleficent cannot find the princess before the curse's deadline passes.

What is the name of Prince Phillip's father in Disney's Sleeping Beauty?

Prince Phillip's father is King Hubert, the jovial neighbouring monarch who plans the children's wedding with Aurora's father and tipsily toasts it in the 'Skumps' drinking song.

On which birthday does Maleficent's curse say Aurora will prick her finger and die?

Merryweather softens the curse to a deep sleep broken by true love's kiss.

Which gifts do Flora and Fauna bestow on baby Aurora before the curse interrupts?

Flora gives the gift of beauty and Fauna the gift of song; the third fairy holds hers back and uses it to soften Maleficent's curse from death into sleep.

Which blue-clad good fairy duels Flora with magic wands over the colour of Aurora's birthday dress?

Merryweather, in blue, wants Aurora's dress blue while Flora wants pink, and their wand duel sends colours up the chimney, which draws Maleficent's raven to the cottage.

What is the name of Maleficent's pet raven in the 1959 film?

Diablo, Maleficent's raven, is her spy; one of the good fairies turns him to stone at the climax. The 2014 film renamed the character Diaval and made him a shapeshifting man.

What is the name of Prince Phillip's horse in Disney's Sleeping Beauty?

Prince Phillip's horse is Samson, whom he bribes with the promise of an extra bucket of oats and a few carrots to chase the singing in the forest; Samson dumps him in a stream instead.

What is the name of Maleficent's domain in the 1959 film?

Maleficent rules from the Forbidden Mountain, a craggy fortress manned by her goons; there she plans to keep Phillip locked up until he is an old man before releasing him to an Aurora who has not aged a day.

Which two magical items do the fairies give Prince Phillip to fight Maleficent?

The fairies arm Phillip with the Sword of Truth and the Shield of Virtue; at the climax Flora enchants the sword so that it flies straight into the transformed Maleficent's heart.

Into what creature does Maleficent transform for the climax of the 1959 film?

Maleficent becomes a huge black-and-purple fire-breathing dragon for the final battle; animator Eric Cleworth modelled the beast's heavy, muscular movement on a rattlesnake.

Who voiced Princess Aurora in Disney's 1959 film?

Mary Costa, a Tennessee-born soprano who later sang at the Metropolitan Opera, was cast in 1952 after a chance meeting at a party; her Southern accent nearly cost her the part until she proved she could lose it.

Eleanor Audley, the voice of Maleficent, had earlier voiced which Disney villain?

Eleanor Audley voiced Lady Tremaine, Cinderella's stepmother, in 1950; she initially declined Maleficent because she was recovering from tuberculosis, and ended up providing the villainess's live-action reference too.

Which artist devised the film's flat, tapestry-like art style inspired by pre-Renaissance European art?

Eyvind Earle, the film's colour stylist and background painter, gave it a flat, vertical, tapestry-like look drawn from medieval art; animators found his backgrounds so detailed that the characters struggled to stand out.

Whose ballet supplied the score and songs for Disney's Sleeping Beauty?

George Bruns adapted Tchaikovsky's 1890 ballet The Sleeping Beauty for the film's score and songs, earning an Oscar nomination for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture.

'Once Upon a Dream' borrows its melody from which piece in the 1890 ballet?

'Once Upon a Dream' sets Jack Lawrence and Sammy Fain's lyrics to the Garland Waltz from Act I of the ballet; Lana Del Rey recorded a dark cover of it for the 2014 Maleficent.

Sleeping Beauty was the first animated film released in which widescreen process?

Sleeping Beauty was the first animated feature in Super Technirama 70, shot on large-format horizontal 35mm Technirama and printed on 70mm for its roadshow engagements; Disney's earlier Lady and the Tramp had used CinemaScope.

Roughly how much did Sleeping Beauty cost to make, a record for a Disney animated feature at the time?

Sleeping Beauty cost about $6 million, the most for any Disney animated feature to that point, after nearly a decade in production; it was the studio's last fully hand-inked feature before xerography arrived with One Hundred and One Dalmatians.

How did Sleeping Beauty perform at the box office on its original 1959 release?

It lost money on first release, earning about $5.3 million in rentals against a record budget, which contributed to Disney's first annual loss in a decade and layoffs at the studio; re-releases later made it profitable.

Which Disney legend was the supervising animator of both Aurora and Maleficent?

Marc Davis, one of Disney's Nine Old Men, supervised both Aurora and Maleficent, designing the villainess with horns and a bat-wing collar; two years later he animated Cruella de Vil.

Which actress, who had also modelled Cinderella, provided live-action reference for Aurora?

Helene Stanley, who had acted out Cinderella for the animators in 1950 and later did the same for Anita in One Hundred and One Dalmatians, provided Aurora's live-action reference, which Walt insisted on.

In which century is Disney's Sleeping Beauty set?

Disney set the film in the 14th century, with Aurora betrothed at her christening to a neighbouring prince to unite the two kingdoms; the medieval setting shaped the Gothic, tapestry-like design.

What are the names of Aurora's parents in the Disney film?

Aurora's parents are King Stefan and Queen Leah; Taylor Holmes voiced Stefan, and Verna Felton, who also voiced Flora, spoke the queen's few lines.

Which Italian author wrote 'Sun, Moon, and Talia', an early Sleeping Beauty tale?

Giambattista Basile's 'Sun, Moon, and Talia' appeared in his Neapolitan collection the Pentamerone (1634–36); in it the sleeping Talia is assaulted by a king and gives birth to twins before waking.

In Basile's version, what pricks the princess's finger instead of a spindle?

A splinter of flax lodges under Talia's fingernail and she falls down as if dead; Perrault and the Grimms switched it to a spindle, which is why kings keep burning spinning wheels.

Perrault's 1697 collection containing Sleeping Beauty is known in English by what title?

Perrault's Histoires ou contes du temps passé carried the subtitle Contes de ma mère l'Oye, so the 1697 collection is known in English as Tales of Mother Goose; it also holds Cinderella and Puss in Boots.

How many good fairies are invited to the christening in Perrault's version?

Seven fairies are invited as godmothers and given golden cases of cutlery; an eighth, old fairy who had not left her tower in fifty years is forgotten and delivers the curse.

For how long does the princess sleep in Perrault's tale?

The young fairy's amendment turns the death into a sleep of a hundred years, after which a king's son will wake her; she also puts the whole palace to sleep so the princess will not wake alone.

In Perrault's tale, what is the prince's mother, who tries to have Sleeping Beauty and her children cooked?

The cook hides the children and serves lamb instead; the ogress ends up in the death she planned for them.

What are the names of Sleeping Beauty's two children in Perrault's version?

Perrault's princess has a daughter called Morning (L'Aurore) and a son called Day (Le Jour); the ballet and then Disney borrowed the daughter's name, Aurora, for the princess herself.

How many wise women does the king invite to the feast in the Grimms' version?

The king owns only twelve golden plates, so he invites twelve of his kingdom's thirteen wise women; the uninvited thirteenth storms in and pronounces the curse.

Which Norse saga heroine, asleep in a ring of fire, is cited as an influence on Sleeping Beauty?

Brynhild in the Völsunga saga is put into an enchanted sleep by Odin inside a ring of fire until Sigurd rides through it; the Grimms cited her as proof the tale was Germanic, not merely French.

What is Sleeping Beauty's number in the Aarne-Thompson fairy-tale classification?

Sleeping Beauty is tale type 410 in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther index; by contrast 510A is Cinderella, 709 is Snow White and 327A is Hansel and Gretel.

Which choreographer created The Sleeping Beauty ballet, premiered in 1890?

Marius Petipa, ballet master of the Imperial Theatres, choreographed The Sleeping Beauty and gave the composer a minutely detailed brief of tempi and bar counts; it was the composer's second ballet after Swan Lake.

In the 1890 Sleeping Beauty ballet, what is the name of the wicked fairy?

Carabosse, the wicked fairy left off the christening guest list, curses the baby Aurora; she and the benevolent Lilac Fairy each have a leitmotif that runs through the whole score.

In which theatre did The Sleeping Beauty ballet premiere?

The Sleeping Beauty premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on 15 January 1890 (3 January Old Style) before Tsar Alexander III, who reportedly offered only the faint praise 'very nice'.

Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland is modelled on which real castle?

The castle, opened with the park in 1955, takes its pale stone, blue turrets and hilltop silhouette from Neuschwanstein, the 19th-century castle Ludwig II of Bavaria built; forced perspective makes it look taller than it is.

How tall is Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle?

Sleeping Beauty Castle stands just 77 feet tall; elements shrink toward the turrets so it reads taller, and it is the only Disney park castle whose construction Walt himself oversaw.

Who plays the title role in the 2014 live-action film Maleficent?

Angelina Jolie plays Maleficent and also executive-produced; the film grossed over $758 million worldwide and earned an Oscar nomination for Anna B. Sheppard's costume design.

Who plays Aurora in the 2014 Maleficent?

Elle Fanning plays Aurora as a sunny teenager who regards Maleficent as her 'fairy godmother'; she returned to the role for the sequel Maleficent: Mistress of Evil.

In the 2014 film, how does Stefan take Maleficent's wings?

Iron is lethal to fairies in the film's world; the dying King Henry had promised the throne to whoever killed her.

Which director, in his directorial debut, took over Maleficent (2014) after Tim Burton left?

Robert Stromberg, a production designer with Oscars for Avatar and Alice in Wonderland, made his directing debut on Maleficent; Linda Woolverton, who wrote Beauty and the Beast, wrote the script.

In what year was Disney's Sleeping Beauty added to the US National Film Registry?

The Library of Congress added Sleeping Beauty to the National Film Registry in December 2019, alongside Purple Rain and Boys Don't Cry; that same year the sequel Maleficent: Mistress of Evil was released.

Who provided the voice of Prince Phillip in Disney's 1959 film?

Bill Shirley, an operetta singer and actor, voiced Prince Phillip, including his half of 'Once Upon a Dream'; he later dubbed Jeremy Brett's singing in My Fair Lady (1964).

On its 1959 release, the film was paired as a double feature with which documentary short?

The programme paired it with Grand Canyon, a CinemaScope short set to Ferde Grofé's Grand Canyon Suite that won the Oscar for Best Live Action Short; the pairing premiered at the Fox Wilshire Theater on 29 January 1959.

The film's colour stylist took its key colours from which illuminated book of hours?

The colour stylist drew the palette from the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, the early-15th-century book of hours painted by the Limbourg brothers, whose calendar pages show castles and courtly scenes in jewel-like colours.

A visit by John Hench to the Cloisters to see which artworks set the film's visual template?

Hench saw the Unicorn Tapestries, the late-15th-century Netherlandish hangings at the Cloisters in New York, and brought reproductions back; their dense millefleur foliage shaped the film's forest backgrounds.

How long did Walt Disney spend searching for Aurora's voice before casting her in 1952?

Walt Disney spent three years auditioning voices for Aurora and considered shelving the project before a chance meeting led him to a young soprano in 1952.

Which 1959 Disney film did director Eric Larson say got the bigger advertising campaign?

Larson, one of the film's sequence directors, said the studio threw its publicity behind The Shaggy Dog, the live-action comedy that became one of 1959's biggest hits, while Sleeping Beauty was left to sell itself.

What is the signature colour of Flora, the self-appointed leader of the three good fairies?

Flora wears red and takes charge of the trio; she was voiced by studio regular Verna Felton, while Fauna's colour is green.