Gaston (Beauty and the Beast) Gaston (Beauty and the Beast) Gaston is a fictional character who appears in Walt Disney Pictures' 30th animated feature film "Beauty and the Beast" (1991). Voiced by American actor and singer Richard White, Gaston is an arrogant hunter whose unrequited feelings for the intellectual Belle drive him to murder his adversary, the Beast, once he realizes she cares for him instead. Gaston serves as a foil personality to the Beast, who was once as vain as Gaston prior to his transformation. An original character who is not present in the "Beauty and the Beast" fairy tale by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de
Beauty and the Beast peasants; it may reflect the social changes occurring at the time of its first writing. Hamburger (2015) points out that the design of the Beast in the 1946 film adaptation by Jean Cocteau was inspired by the portrait of Petrus Gonsalvus, a native of Tenerife who suffered from hypertrichosis, causing an abnormal growth of hair on his face and other parts, and who came under the protection of the French king and married a beautiful Parisian woman named Catherine. The tale has been notably adapted for screen, stage, prose, and television over the years. Beauty and the Beast Beauty and