Maleficent (/məˈlɛfɪsənt/ or /məˈlɪfɪsənt/) is a fictional character who appears in Walt Disney Productions‘ 16th animated feature film, Sleeping Beauty (1959). She is an evil fairy and the self-proclaimed “Mistress of All Evil” who, after not being invited to a christening, curses the infant Princess Aurora to “prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die” before the sun sets on Aurora’s sixteenth birthday.[2]

Maleficent is based on the evil fairy godmother character in Charles Perrault‘s fairy tale Sleeping Beauty,[3] as well as the villainess who appears in the Brothers Grimm‘s retelling of the story, Little Briar Rose. Maleficent was animated by Marc Davis.

She is voiced by Eleanor Audley, who earlier voiced Lady Tremaine, Cinderella’s evil stepmother, in Cinderella (1950). She serves as a recurring antagonist in Disney’s House of Mouse, voiced by Lois Nettleton, and in the Kingdom Hearts video game series, voiced by Susanne Blakeslee. She was also an antagonist in the Disney Channel Original Movie Descendants, in which she was portrayed by Kristin Chenoweth.

revision of the character appeared as the protagonist in the 2014 live-action film Maleficent, portrayed by Angelina Jolie, who reprised the role in the sequel Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, which was released on October 18, 2019.[4] This version of Maleficent is portrayed as a sympathetic character, who is misunderstood in trying to protect herself and her domain from human