On January 25, 1961, One Hundred and One Dalmatians first showed its spots on movie screens nationwide. A few years ago, for the release of the film on DVD, Lisa Davis, the voice of Anita Radcliff, explained to an attentive human audience how Walt Disney spotted her for the role. “I grew up in England and I came here in the ’50s originally to do something else for Walt Disney which didn’t happen, that was to be a live Alice in Alice in Wonderland. Then he changed his mind and I went back to England, a very heartbroken little girl. But he remembered me and I came back to America when I was 15 and I was under contract to various studios doing a lot of really bad work. I was working on this movie which starred the inimitable Ms. Zsa Zsa Gabor, and she made my life very difficult but I thought I’d get something out of it so I learned how to imitate her very, very well. I could do a very good Zsa Zsa Gabor. When Mr. Disney first decided about Cruella De Vil, he sort of thought she’d have a Zsa Zsa Gabor type of voice and he knew that I could do Zsa Zsa Gabor. So Mr. Disney called me in to the studio and here I was, 21 years of age, scared stiff of the great Walt Disney. Believe it or not, he was so involved in this picture that he was actually working with me, reading the lines. He was reading Anita and I was struggling, but struggling with Cruella De Vil as Zsa Zsa Gabor. I thought to myself, ‘I’m never going to get this job. I’m totally wrong for this part.’ I thought, ‘How do I tell Walt Disney that’s he’s wrong? How do I tell the great Walt Disney he’s made a mistake and he’s got me in for the wrong part?’ I plucked up my courage and I said, ‘Excuse me, sir? Do you think I could try Anita?’ He said, ‘Do you think you’re more Anita than you are Cruella?’ I said, ‘I’m absolutely Anita, sir! Absolutely!’ So he read Cruella, and a he was a wonderful Cruella De Vil, he really was a wonderful, and I read Anita, and that’s why I’m sitting here today.”
