I was looking through my files and found these design drawings I did way back for the early version of "Beauty and the Beast". The scans are xeroxes colored with markers.
At that time we had Maurice's sister in the story. She was part of the household and insisted that Belle marry the wealthy Gaston, so the whole family -especially herself- would benefit from the marriage.
It created an interesting dynamic, but everybody felt that a selfish, cruel character like her would draw parallels to Cinderella's stepmother.
This design was based on a sketch by Jean Gillmore.
Various ideas for Maurice.
I was asked to base one design on the actor Jack Lemmon.
Gaston was already vain and full of himself, but not like the outdoorsy type from the final film.
This guy lived the good life. He wore expensive clothes, had servants and never worked a day in his life.
He sort of looks like a young Marlon Brando, which was unintentional.
I don't think these are particularly good drawings, but they show you that we went into different directions at the beginning of production.
