“You can’t say no to the Beauty and the Beast,” sang David Bowie in 1977 on the opening track of his “Heroes” album. The song, which is indeed titled “Beauty and the Beast,” seems to have little to do with any other Beauty and the Beast we’ve heard of, but that’s Bowie for you.
His lyrical contention, though, is absolutely right if we’re talking about artists and filmmakers and writers. Creative sorts have for centuries said yes to the tale of a young woman held in luxurious captivity by a fearsome looking but tender-hearted monster.
One of the most popular was Disney’s 1991 animated film version which, as Disney films sometimes do, became an also very successful Broadway musical. You can see that for yourself when Disney’s Beauty and the Beast is presented in Morsani Hall, May 4-16, 2027.
It’s the first tour for the musical in more than 25 years and fans are no doubt experiencing a heightened sense of anticipation.
Most re-tellings of the tale are based on Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s revised version of Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve’s 1740 novella, La Belle et la Bête. Beaumont shortened the text considerably, and in doing so created the fairy tale that has endured for centuries.
While Beaumont’s Beauty originated with Villeneuve’s tale, Villeneuve’s was based on a real person.
That person was Petrus Gonsalvus. A genetic condition, hypertrichosis, caused Gonsalvus, to have excessive amounts of hair all over his body. (The condition is known informally as wolfman syndrome for pretty obvious reasons.)
At 10 years old, Gonsalvus was captured and taken from his native Canary Islands to France, presented as a “gift” for the king. The king, however, had the boy educated. Gonsalvus became fluent in Latin, mastered court etiquette and lived his life as a nobleman.
Gonsalvus’ “Beauty” was a Parisian woman, Catherine Raffelin, to whom he was wed in a marriage arranged by the queen. Raffelin is said to have known nothing of Gonsalvus’ appearance before meeting him at the altar. Whatever her initial reaction may have been, she soon warmed to Gonsalvus, and the couple’s union produced six children and lasted until Gonsalvus’ death in 1618.
While the real-life story tends to make the “cursed prince learns to love” plotline seem a bit shopworn, Beauty and the Beast has inspired several castles’ worth of tellings on screens and in print. Some of the more notable are:
Visionary French director Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête (1946), a stunningly beautiful work that takes place where lines between dreams and reality disappear.
Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre featured live-action retellings of children’s stories and aired on Showtime when it wasn’t showing Gallagher or Aerobicize. Its 1984 version of Beauty starred Susan Sarandon and Klaus Kinski, whose reputation was far more beastly than the Beast’s.
A pre-Sons of Anarchy Ron Perlman played a kind and courtly Beast to Linda Hamilton’s initially shallow Beauty on this CBS series. This Beauty and the Beast lasted only three seasons but earned a devoted following for its clever reimagining of the Beast’s realm as a civilization existing underneath New York City. A pre-Game of Thrones George R.R. Miller was one of the show’s writers.
The Go-Go’s Beauty and the Beat (1981). Just kidding. Good album, though.
Fashion Beast is a radical reworking of the fairy tale by Alan Moore. Moore and collaborators turned his unfilmed 1985 script into a 2012 comic running 10 issues. As Moore is the author of Watchmen, V for Vendetta and Batman: The Killing Joke, don’t expect a happy ending. If you’re looking for something to trigger existential dread, though, read on.
Disney, of course, created a version of Beauty and the Beast so delightful that, like Snow White and Cinderella before it, has become the tale’s most well-known interpretation. It made the transition from screen to stage with all of its charm, romance and joy intact. Don’t miss it.
(Oh, and that David Bowie song is really good, too.)
For tickets or more information on Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (May 4-16, 2027, Morsani Hall), visit our website or call 813.229.7827.