The 1940s were no fairy tale for Walt Disney. With a war waging, many Americans didn’t have the appetite, the heart or the dollars to go to a “picture show.” Hollywood was also worried about a new competitor— television—siphoning more money from movie theaters. And then, like magic, Cinderella to the rescue! The 1950 fantasy yarn of a girl, her wicked stepsisters and evil stepmother, a dashing prince, glass slippers and a gaggle of cute, talking animals was a smashing success, right off the bat.

“Disney was on the ropes,” Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz tells Parade. “Cinderella saved Disney.”

Coming out as the ’40s turned the corner into a new decade, the joyous fairy tale was just what audiences needed, and they flocked to see it, to bask in it; a soothing big-screen balm for a nation fatigued by war and worries. Now people all over the country were chasing the American dream, longing for a new, better, more peaceful life; yearning for something, just like the girl named Cinderella.

The movie also resonated with Walt Disney, who recognized the dream of Cinderella in his own quest to become a successful animator and head his own movie company. If she could do it, , he thought, so could I. In Cinderella, Disney saw the stars align for his own future.

The movie restored Disney’s financial footing and gave his company a renewed sense of direction, paving the way for more imaginative animated tales of far-flung escapism, adventure, heroes and villains, with emotion and whimsy and heart—like Alice in Wonderland in 1951, and, in 1953, Peter Pan. Hailed at the time for its sleek look, its use of pop music in the soundtrack and its colorfully expressive characters, Cinderella is now regarded as a prime jewel in the Disney crown, one of the greatest animated stories of all time.

Years after the film, Disney remarked on why he thought was successful—and how it did exactly what he wanted a movie to do. “I want to be hit right here in the heart,” he said. “You pulled for Cinderella. You felt for Cinderella.”

And you felt—especially later— Cinderella’s role in helping to define and enshrine what would become one of the company’s most durable cinematic trademarks: the Disney princess who finds that dreams really do come true.

“Cinderella is the definitive ‘movie princess’ movie,” says Mankiewicz. “It has everything you want in a princess story, and it’s done in this authentic, beautiful way. And the bad guys get theirs.”

The “bad guys” are, of course, actually bad girls: Cinderella’s greedy, grubbing stepsisters and her awful stepmother. “Look, this movie probably is more responsible than anything else for the notion of evil, wicked stepmothers,” says Mankiewicz. “It’s not been kind to stepmothers, casting them on a very difficult road, and many of them are, of course, wonderful and important and well-meaning.”

Audiences indeed—as Disney had hoped—rooted for Cinderella; forced into servitude, unappreciated and neglected, but aided greatly by a fairy godmother and some household critters who help her live her dream of going to the royal ball. There she meets a handsome prince but loses one of her slippers as she’s rushing home. And when the prince finds it, he searches the realm for the woman who left it behind.

The story has resonated with people around the world for centuries. But Disney reinvented the old tale through the magic of new movie technology, using film photography of live models as templates for sequences that would later be sketched over and animated by hand. Rotoscoping, as it was called, had been developed by Max Fleischer, the pioneering animator, a few years earlier. It made characters move with such life-like fluidity, it was almost breathtaking, like nothing anyone had ever seen before. Disney also used the technique in his animated Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Alice in Wonderland. Cinderella was rereleased multiple times in theaters, found repeated generations of new viewers through later release on VHS and DVD, and was eventually remade as a live-action version, starring Lily James, in 2015. And it spawned a whole slew of other “princesses” (see page 10).

Why does this “cartoon” tale from 1950 continue to resonate so widely? Mankiewicz thinks the answer is simple: “It was able to reach people, speak to them and move them. It’s got despair, perseverance and love, adorable animals… and let’s not leave out magic, very crucial magic. We want to believe in things that seem impossible, achieving things that seem inconceivable.”

Disney’s Cinderella, he adds, “makes people think, I hope I find somebody who makes me feel the way the prince feels about Cinderella, or the way Cinderella feels about the prince. We hope we might have that ‘magic’ in our lives and find people who care about us that way. It’s not really magic, but it can feel like it.”

And the Disney magic looks better than ever in the new 4K rerelease of Cinderella (available Aug. 25). The 1950 movie has been meticulously restored and fine-tuned, frame by frame, into digital high resolution, some four times cleaner and more fine-tuned than a standard DVD—and more than 2,000 times sharper than an old VHS tape.

“Viewers watching this restoration will see more clarity and subtlety,” says veteran Disney animator Eric Goldberg, who worked on the project. “They’ll see differences in color from shot to shot and discover how one color works with another.” Surviving prints of the original film had been decayed and decomposed by the years, and Goldberg adds that much care was given in the new 4K release to reinstate the vivid colors and nuanced textures of the original. “[ We] knew what the film was supposed to look like, and it took a lot just ‘getting back’ to Cinderella having dusty blonde hair and a silver dress.”

From what he’s seen of the new Cinderella release, Mankiewicz is impressed. “It looks unbelievably modern and vibrant, lush and beautiful,” he says. “And if that triggers a bunch more kids to see and appreciate it, that obviously makes a lot of financial success to Disney. And there’s nothing wrong with bringing an entirely new generation of people to a movie.”

That’s impressive for a movie that’s been around for nearly 75 years—based on a tale that’s been told and retold and refashioned many times, and used as the basis for thousands of movies in dozens of languages. The character of Cinderella is much, much older than Disney—but Disney’s version remains definitive among all the other iterations of the story, across time.

And Mankiewicz reminds us why. “Disney wasn’t the first,” he says. “But they were the best.”

We’ve been fascinated with princesses for, well, forever. But does the word mean the same today as it did back in 1950 when Cinderella really started the princess ball rolling? Are princess and prince stories—with echoes of musty castles and dense medieval forests—still relevant in a modern world? And should children continue to look to Disney princesses as playtime role models?

“We need to think about it difffferently,” says TCM’s Mankiewicz, who notes that “traditional” masculine and feminine descriptors aren’t as rigidly regarded as they used to be in today’s era that has expanded into newer designations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, cis, pansexual and queer. “We’ve got to be a little more careful with [‘princess’ and ‘prince’] and how we apply them, and what our presumptions about gender are. We don’t tell stories the same way in 2023 that we told them in 1950. That’s not some right-wing talking point for Fox about ‘woke-ism;’ that’s just progress and thoughtfulness and concern about others.”

Catherine Fuchs, a professor of child psychology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, agrees. “I think the term princess embodies more than it used to,” she says, particularly with regards to issues of gender, self-image and unrealistic body types. “The [princess] connotation suggests a level of body image that many, or most, will never accomplish,” she says. “And there needs to

be role models for women whose goals are not to be idolized by a man.”

But neither the movie expert nor the child psychologist thinks the solution is getting rid of princesses.

“There are still plenty of little girls who want to be princesses; that can be a fun thing to play and imagine,” says Mankiewicz, who has a young daughter. “And there’s nothing that should get in the way of a kid’s desire to play and use their imaginations.”

“I think we need to have princesses with more diversity in their attitude toward the world,” says Fuchs. “I don’t think the answer is to not have princesses. The answer is to redefine what a princess is.”

Disney is trying. First, give Cinderella credit for being Disney’s first “princess” without any royal lineage or noble blood, paving the way for other animated female characters—including Mulan ( Mulan), Belle ( Beauty and the Beast) and Esmerelda ( The Hunchback of Notre Dame)— to be proclaimed “Disney princesses” as an almost generic term for spunky young female protagonists. And today’s Disney princesses are a bit more diverse, even as they continue to trend mostly white. ( Jasmin from Aladdin is Arabian; Pocahontas is Native American; Mulan is Chinese; Tiana from The Princess and the Frog is Black.)

Although Disney chooses to use the term “princesses” to define a legacy of female characters across the decades with an admirable range of life skills, cultural backgrounds and individual strengths, they’re still often swept up in their search for love. But there’s progress there too: Of Disney’s 13 official “princesses,” three of them have no love interest. For Moana, Merida ( Brave) and Raya ( Raya and the Last Dragon), their goal isn’t to land a prince but to find their purpose.

“Cinderella believed in dreams, all right, but she also believed in doing something about them. When Prince Charming didn’t come along, she went over to the palace and got him.” —Walt Disney

1914 Mary Pickford

The silent-Hlm star known as “America’s Sweetheart” starred in this version of Cinderella with her then-husband, Owen Moore, as Prince Charming.

1939 Deanna Durbin

A Canadian-born singing star who made her mark in the 1930s and ‘40s, she played a Cinderella-esque young woman in a modernized movie musical called First Love Love. Her “prince” was played by Robert Stack, who’d go on to TV stardom in The Untouchables in the 1960s.

1950 Ilene Woods

The speaking and singing voice of this animated Cinderella was chosen by Walt Disney over more than 300 other aspiring young actresses.

1955 Leslie Caron

In the movie musical The Glass Slipper, she’s Ella, a girl who gets mistaken for an Egyptian princess at a swanky highsociety ball.

1957 Julie Andrews

Years before Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music brought her Oscars, Andrews starred in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, the first of a trio of made-for-TV movie musicals based on new tunes by the iconic Broadway songwriting duo.

1965 Lesley Ann Warren

The Julie Andrews TV event was so popular, it was remade with new songs and a new cast, including this fledgling ballet-trained actress, who was only 18 at the time.

1985 Jennifer Beals

Just two years after her acclaimed starring role in Flashdance, she starred in an episode of TV’s Faerie Tale Theater— alongside Matthew Broderick as Prince Charming, just months before Broderick would become a Hollywood commodity in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. .

1990 Jennifer Grey

Fresh from appearing with Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing and Matthew Broderick in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , she starred in the TV movie If the Shoe Fits as an aspiring footwear designer who meets a high-society fashion mogul, played by Rob Lowe.

1997 Brandy

Her real name is Brandy Norwood, but this singing-songwriting pop star was better known as just Brandy when she starred in the third version of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, becoming the first Black actress to take on the role.

1998 Drew Barrymore

Yes, little Gertie from E.T. grew up to grow into the slippers in Ever After, a hip and fun take on the story—but one with no magic, music or fairy godmother. This Cinderella definitely saves herself. The great Angelica Houston played her not-so-nice stepmother.

2000 Ann-Margret

The prolific actress and singer—who starred with Elvis in Viva Las Vegas and would go on to receive Hve Golden Globes and a pair of Oscar nominations for other roles—played an older, wiser version of Cinderella in the TV miniseries The 10th Kingdom, set in an after-happily-ever-after world with queens, trolls and a talking mirror.

2004 Anne Hathaway

She starred—and did her own singing—in Ella Enchanted, based on a modernized novel of the same title about a young woman trying to help a young prince (Hugh Dancy, now starring in TV’s Law & Order) and steer clear of her unpleasant stepfamily.

2004 Hilary Duff

In A Cinderella Story, the former child star and pop princess of Disney’s Lizzie McGuire TV series played a high school student working to save enough money to go to college at—where else?— Princeton.

2008 Selena Gomez

Following up the success of Duff in Cinderella Story, it was remade (as Another Cinderella Story) with this other young Disney star. Gomez, from Wizards of Waverly Place, was also a budding singer; she played a teenager hoping to win a dance contest to appear in a video with a dashing pop star.

2014 Anna Kendrick

The movie musical based on Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway hit Into the Woods featured a bunch of fairy-tale characters, including Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood and the big bad Wolf (Johnny Depp), a witch (Meryl Streep) and Kendrick’s Cinderella. Chris Pine’s goofball prince nearly steals the show.

2015 Lily James

One of Disney’s first live-action adaptations of its animated classics was the lavish Cinderella remake with the Downton Abbey star in the lead role, Cate Blanchett as her stepmother and Helena Bonham Carter as the fairy godmother.

2021 Camila Cabello

The singer-turned-actress played another modern-day version in Cinderella, as a young woman dreaming of becoming a fashion designer. And reallife fashionista Billy Porter was her fairy godmother!

1. How much do you pay—as an adult—to have a meal with a character dressed like Cinderella in her Magic Castle at Disneyworld?

A. $49

B. $79

C. $99

2. Country superstar Garth Brooks had a Top 10 country hit with a song, “It’s Midnight Cinderella,” sung from the perspective of what storybook character?

A. Prince Charming

B. Peter the Pumpkin Eater

C. The Big Bad Wolf

3. What did Walt Disney introduce to Cinderella that did not appear in previous folk versions?

A. Evil stepsisters

B. Fairy godmother

C. Talking animals

4. Which musician wrote a song inspired by the Cinderella story?

A. Miley Cyrus

B. Eminem

C. Michael Jackson

5. The castle in the 1950 animated Hlm was based on an actual castle in Bavaria, Germany, which was also featured in what other two animated Disney films?

A. Sleeping Beauty and Snow White

B. Pinocchio and Dumbo

C. Peter Pan and Lady and the Tramp

6. Cinderella’s lazy feline antagonist is a fat cat named what?

A. Beelzebub

B. Faust

C. Lucifer

7. This actress gave up the opportunity to play Cinderella in Disney’s later live-action remake to star in another Disney live-action remake. Who was she, and what was it?

A. Emma Watson/ Beauty and the Beast

B. Mia Wasikowska/ Alice in Wonder-Wonderland

C. Eva Green/ Dumbo

8. The Sherman Brothers wrote the Oscar-nominated songs in The Slipper and the Rose: The Story of Cinderella (1976). What else was the songwriting duo known for writing?

A. “It’s a Small World (After All)”

B. “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”

C. “Chim Chim Cher-ee”

9. In 1947, Revlon marketed Cinderella-inspired lipstick and nail polish in what shade?

A. Pumpkin pink

B. Ball-gown red

C. Slipper clear

10. Who hip-hopped the gender of the story in Cinderfella (1960)?

A. Jerry Lewis

B. Bob Hope

C. Dean Martin

11. In the original French folktale about Cinderella, her slippers are made from…

A. Wood

B. Porcelain

C. Squirrel fur

12. What actress wore a gown to the Academy Awards in 2014, drawing comparisons to Cinderella’s ballgown?

A. Lupita Nyong’o

B. Julia Roberts

C. Jennifer Lawrence