Urszula from “The Little Mermaid” was based on a real character. It was supposed to be Joan Collins, but the creators were impressed by someone else

Urszula, the sea witch, very soon after the premiere of “The Little Mermaid” in 1989, was hailed by viewers and critics as one of the best negative heroines. However, the creators of the cult animation took a lot of time to properly design the character and cast the right voice actress in this important character for the plot. They looked for inspiration in the real world and found it in the most unexpected place for a Walt Disney studio – at a performance by a pioneering American drag queen.

Urszula from “The Little Mermaid” is based on a real character

Work on Urszula’s project dragged on for a year. Directors and screenwriters Ron Clements and John Musker decidedly expanded the participation of characters in relation to Andersen’s fairy tales. However, it took a long time to find the right actress to voice the sea witch – it was important that she could also sing. The creators wrote the role with Bea Arthur in mind, with lyricist Howard Ashman preferring to cast Joan Collins (an audience known as the sinister Alexis). However, the role initially went to Broadway actress Elaine Stritch, but her interpretation of the song “Poor Unfortunate Souls” did not appeal to the creators so much that Pat Carroll was cast.

Urszula was animated by Ruben A. Aquino, who tested various possibilities. He tried to design the witch as a hybrid of a stingray and a human, or a common scorpionfish. Ron Clements finally decided on an octopus, and by the way, the number of its tentacles was reduced from eight to six – for financial reasons. It was cheaper to animate fewer tentacles.

For many years, no one wanted to officially confirm that Urszula’s project was based on the image of Divine – a pioneering drag queen from Baltimore. Finally, working on both the original and the upcoming live-action The Little Mermaid, composer Alan Menken admitted that they were in fact inspired by Divine.

Divine was the stage persona of the American actress and singer Harris Glenn Milstead, who for years collaborated with the independent filmmaker John Waters. It was he who came up with the nickname “Divine” together with the slogan “The most beautiful woman in the world … almost”. Over the years, they worked on various film projects, and the most popular was brought to them by the bawdy comedy “Pink Flamingos” from 1972 – the production became a cult classic. Milstead usually played female roles.

When you look at Divine’s photos, you can clearly see how much Urszula was created in her likeness: an unnaturally high hairline, almost grotesquely large eyebrows and heavy make-up are the components of the image that was groundbreaking in the world of American drag in the 70s. Laura Zornos in a text for American”.

Director John Waters, in an interview with Time, emphasizes: “Ursula was an outsider. She was magical and had a style that many may not understand. She was proud of herself, she was confident. She never questioned her appearance. She never felt – unlike many people – that she looked strange. She was beautiful in her own way,” he characterizes the phoneme of the Disney character who was so much based on his close friend.

Harris Glenn Milstead was born in 1945 and died prematurely of a heart attack in 1988. He had been working with Waters since the 1960s, and as the author of “Time” notes, at that time completely different canons prevailed in the drag community. Waters points out that Divine was an exception in a sea of ​​drag queens who “wanted to be the next Miss America” ​​and emphasized a glamorous, feminine image. Divine firmly rejected stereotypical standards of beauty and definitely stood out from the group. “Glenn was a pioneer and without Divine there would be no world of drag as we know it today. I think she was someone who really opened up to the possibilities of what drag could be,” says Jeffrey Schwarz, a researcher of her work.