48 Fun Facts About Sleeping Beauty

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

Briar Rose grows up not knowing she is a princess: the fairies tell her only on the day she must go home, moments after she has fallen for a stranger in the forest.

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.

Maleficent's curse was to strike before what on Aurora's sixteenth birthday?

Sunset: the fairies hide her until that very day, then bring her home with the sun still up, just in time for Maleficent to lure her to a spindle.

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

Beauty and song: Flora and Fauna give theirs, but the third fairy has not yet spoken, so she spends her gift softening Maleficent's curse from death into sleep.

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

Merryweather 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 Disney's 1959 Sleeping Beauty?

Diablo spies for Maleficent until one of the good fairies turns him to stone. The 2014 film renames him Diaval, a raven she can change into a man.

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

Samson takes the bribe of an extra bucket of oats and a few carrots to chase the singing, but a branch sweeps Phillip into the water and he snaps, 'No carrots!'

What is the name of Maleficent's domain in Disney's 1959 Sleeping Beauty?

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 weapon do the good fairies give Prince Phillip along with the Shield of Virtue?

The Sword of Truth ends the battle: the fairies enchant it so that Phillip's throw flies straight into the transformed Maleficent's heart.

Into what creature does Maleficent transform for the climax of Disney's 1959 Sleeping Beauty?

A fire-breathing dragon: animator Eric Cleworth modelled the beast on a rattlesnake, with powerful muscles hauling a bulky body over the rocks.

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 villain in Disney's Cinderella?

Lady Tremaine, the stepmother, came nine years earlier. Audley at first turned Maleficent down because she was battling tuberculosis, and took the part only once she felt stronger.

Why did many Disney animators object to Eyvind Earle's backgrounds for Sleeping Beauty?

They upstaged the characters: Earle's paintings were so detailed that animators struggled to make figures stand out, though Aurora's animator, Marc Davis, embraced the style.

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

Tchaikovsky's ballet runs through the whole score: even the love duet 'Once Upon a Dream' is its Garland Waltz with words added.

Which singer recorded a dark cover of 'Once Upon a Dream' for the 2014 film Maleficent?

Lana Del Rey slowed the 1959 love duet, itself a waltz lifted from the ballet, into a haunting lullaby that played over the film's trailer.

Sleeping Beauty was Disney's second widescreen animated feature, after which film?

Lady and the Tramp came first, in CinemaScope, which already meant extra work filling the wider screen. Sleeping Beauty moved up to 70mm prints, in Super Technirama 70.

Sleeping Beauty was the last Disney animated feature made with which technique before Xerox copying replaced it?

Hand-inked cels, traced from every drawing, gave way on Disney's next animated feature to Xerox copying, which put the animators' own pencil lines straight onto the cel.

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

It lost money: the distributor ended about $900,000 down, Disney posted its first annual loss in a decade and the animation department saw mass layoffs. Later re-releases turned it into a hit.

Which villain was animator Marc Davis's last, two years after Aurora and Maleficent?

Cruella de Vil was Davis's farewell to animation: after One Hundred and One Dalmatians he moved to designing Disneyland attractions, among them Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion.

Why did Walt Disney first film Sleeping Beauty with costumed actors?

As reference for the animators: Walt wanted the characters as lifelike as possible, so Helene Stanley, who had already modelled Cinderella, acted out Aurora's scenes in costume.

What does Maleficent conjure around the sleeping castle to keep Prince Phillip out?

A forest of thorns, borrowed with a twist: in Perrault's tale the good fairy grows the thicket to shield the sleeping princess, while Disney hands it to the villain as a weapon.

What are Aurora's parents called in Disney's Sleeping Beauty?

King Stefan and Queen Leah, though the film never speaks the queen's name: on screen she is simply the Queen, and Disney's own archive confirms she was left unnamed.

Aurora was the last Disney princess created in Walt Disney's lifetime; which princess came next, thirty years later?

Ariel arrived in 1989 with The Little Mermaid, Disney's first animated fairy tale since Sleeping Beauty and the hit that launched the studio's renaissance.

In Giambattista 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?

Tales of Mother Goose renders the book's nickname, Contes de ma mère l'Oye, which soon eclipsed Perrault's formal title, Stories or Tales from Past Times, with Morals.

In Perrault's tale, why was the old fairy, shut in her tower for fifty years, left uninvited?

She was believed dead, or else enchanted. The king found her a place at the table, but she muttered threats, so a young fairy hid behind the hangings to speak last and soften the blow.

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?

An ogress: her cook hides the family and serves lamb, kid and venison in their place, and when her son rides home she leaps into the tub of vipers she had prepared for them.

In Perrault's tale, Sleeping Beauty names her daughter Morning (L'Aurore) and her son what?

Day (Le Jour), so called in the tale because he was even more beautiful than his sister. The ballet, and then Disney, gave her name, Aurora, to the sleeping princess herself.

In the Grimms' Sleeping Beauty, one wise woman goes uninvited because the king owns only twelve of what?

Golden plates: the kingdom has thirteen wise women, so the one left at home storms into the feast and pronounces the curse herself.

Which Norse heroine, pricked into an enchanted sleep by Odin, is cited as an influence on Sleeping Beauty?

Brynhild, a valkyrie, is pricked into sleep for defying Odin and, in the Völsunga saga, lies behind a wall of shields until Sigurd wakes her. The Grimms' own notes to the tale compare its sleeper with her.

Why did Maleficent's goons fail for years to find the hidden princess?

They kept searching for a baby: the goons had spent all those years checking cradles, and when Maleficent finds out she laughs, rages, and sends her raven instead.

Guests from other Perrault tales dance at Aurora's wedding in the 1890 ballet, including which character?

Puss in Boots duets with the White Cat: the theatre director who commissioned the ballet wanted its last act filled with characters from Perrault's other tales.

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

Carabosse was first played by a man: Enrico Cecchetti took the wicked fairy's role at the 1890 premiere and also danced the Bluebird in the same performance.

In which theatre did The Sleeping Beauty ballet premiere?

The Mariinsky, St. Petersburg, staged it in January 1890 with Marius Petipa's choreography. Its composer thought it perhaps the best thing he had written, though he had composed it 'incredibly quickly'.

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

Neuschwanstein in Bavaria, Ludwig II's 19th-century castle, gave the main outline, though other European castles fed in. The park's castle opened in 1955, four years before the film it was named to promote.

Which trick makes Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle look taller?

Forced perspective: the castle is only 77 feet tall, but its building stones shrink from the base to the turrets, so the eye reads the top as farther away.

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

Angelina Jolie acts opposite her own daughter in it: Vivienne plays the five-year-old Aurora, cast because other children were scared of Jolie in costume.

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 Maleficent (2014), which metal, deadly to fairies, is used to burn off Maleficent's wings?

Iron burns fairies in the film's world, so the man she trusted drugs her and sears off her wings with it, then presents them as proof of her death to win the throne.

Which director was attached to Disney's Maleficent before first-timer Robert Stromberg took over?

Tim Burton left in 2011 to make Dark Shadows, and the job went to Robert Stromberg, the award-winning production designer of Burton's own Alice in Wonderland.

Which honour did Sleeping Beauty receive in 2019?

The National Film Registry honour came sixty years after release, by which time the film's look had shaped later Disney features such as Pocahontas and Frozen.

Prince Phillip's voice, Bill Shirley, later sang for Jeremy Brett in which musical?

My Fair Lady hid two singers: Bill Shirley sang Freddy's song for Jeremy Brett, uncredited, just as Marni Nixon sang for Audrey Hepburn.

Which woodland animal wears Prince Phillip's cape and hat to dance with Aurora in Disney's Sleeping Beauty?

An owl plays the dream prince: the animals make off with Phillip's wet clothes, birds hold the cape aloft, and two rabbits hop along inside his shoes.

In which video game series does Maleficent lead a band of Disney villains as a recurring antagonist?

Kingdom Hearts makes Maleficent the leader of a league of villains who hunt the seven Princesses of Heart, Aurora among them, to seize power over every world.

Walt Disney nearly shelved Sleeping Beauty during a three-year search for what?

A voice for Aurora: the search ended only when the film's first composer heard a young soprano sing at a dinner party and invited her to audition.

Which actress plays Aurora's scheming future mother-in-law in Maleficent: Mistress of Evil?

Michelle Pfeiffer plays Queen Ingrith, who invites the fairy folk of the Moors to the wedding and then has them trapped inside the castle chapel.

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

Red is Flora's own colour, yet it is pink she demands for Aurora's gown, and the magic she fires to get it gives the fairies' hiding place away.