Maleficent is the main antagonist of Disney's 16th animated feature film Sleeping Beauty.
Plot[]
To King Stefan and his wife is born the beautiful girl named Aurora. Among the guests are three good fairies. Two give their gifts of beauty and song; Maleficent (who had not been invited) gives her "gift" that the girl before her sixteenth birth will prick her finger on a spinning wheel needle and die! The three good fairies cannot undo the curse but they can only change it so that the girl will fall into a deep sleep and can only be awakened by a kiss of True love. In order to hide from Maleficent hatred the three good fairies take the child and raise her in the forest hut. By chance on her 16th birthday she meets a handsome young man [Prince Phillip] who she falls in love with. She tells her guardians she is in love, but is devestated to learn that as a Princess she must undergo a arranged wedding. Maleficent accidently learns of Aurora marriage plans and tricks the girl into touching the needle; the three fairies place everyone into a magical sleep; they then learn that her would be husband is the same youth she met in the forest. Phillip however has been kidnapped by Maleficent who plans on keeping him until he is old man and only then letting him see Aurora. The three fairies free Phillip; an enraged Maleficent turns herself into a dragon to kill Phillip; he throw his sword of truth which pierces her and she falls off a cliff to her doom {Similar to the doom of Queen Grimhilde in the earlier Disney Classic "Snow White). Phillip awakes Aurora with a kiss and they marry and live happily ever after.
Trivia[]
- She was voiced by the late Eleanor Audrey in the original film.
- With Madam Mim (The Sword In The Stone) and Cruella De Vil (One Hundred and One Dalmatians) (1961 movie) she is one of the four great female Walt Disney villians.