Joyce Kennedy was an actress of modest renown, who died in 1943, aged just 44, entirely unaware that an off-colour remark she had once made to a friend would inspire one of children s literature s greatest villains. He would make a nice fur coat, she blithely observed of a Dalmatian puppy called Pongo, unwittingly planting the seed that would grow into the monstrous Cruella de Vil.
Pongo s smitten (and offended) owner was the playwright Dodie Smith, who more than 20 years later, having never forgotten Joyce s remark, wrote her first children s book, One Hundred and One Dalmatians.
Puppy love: As the new Cruella remake proves dalmatians haven t had their day Brian Viner looks back at the history of the well-loved children s novel written by Dodie Smith (pictured)