Tinker Bell

This article is about a fictional character. For Paris Hilton's dog, see Tinkerbell (dog).. For other uses, see Tinker Bell (disambiguation).

Tinker Bell or Tinkerbell is a fictional character in J.M. Barrie's play and subsequent novel Peter Pan, and various adaptations of them. She is descibed as a common fairy who mends pots and kettles and, though sometimes ill-behaved and vindictive, at other times she is helpful and kind to Peter (for whom she apparently has romantic feelings). The extremes in her personality are explained by the fact that a fairy's size prevents her from holding more than one feeling at a time. Tinkerbell doesn't express herself with spoken words, but her enthusiastic tinkling bells speak volumes.

In one famous scene, she is dying, but will survive if enough people believe in fairies. In the play the characters make a plea to the children watching to sustain her, an example of "breaking the fourth wall". In the novel and the 2003 film, Peter calls out to dreaming children within the storytelling universe. At the end of the novel, when Peter returns to the Darling home after a year, it is revealed that Tinker Bell "is no more" since "fairies don't live long, but they are so little that a short time seems a good while to them." Like nearly everything that has happened in the story, Peter has forgotten her; real death and sadness cannot exist in his everlasting childhood.

In stage presentations, she is typically represented by a tightly focused spotlight or other lighting effect (in a London staging of it, the lights failed and they had to use a matchstick fastened to an ice cube to give a strange light effect). On screen, she has been played by Virginia Browne Faire (Herbert Brenon's 1924 silent movie Peter Pan), Julia Roberts (Steven Spielberg's 1991 film Hook), and Ludivine Sagnier (P. J. Hogan's 2003 film Peter Pan). Despite an urban legend that Disney modeled the character in the 1953 animated film version after then-budding starlet Marilyn Monroe, actress Margaret Kerry actually served as the animators' reference.

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Tinkerbell is one of the mascots for Disney.

Disney's version of the fairy (whom they sometimes call a pixie), became something of a mascot for The Walt Disney Company, appearing in commercials and program openings to spread fairy dust from her magic wand. She was also among the numerous Disney characters to appear in the television series House of Mouse, and appeared in the Kingdom Hearts video game series.

Recently, Tinker Bell has gotten her own book series. Written by Ella Enchanted author Gail Carson Levine, Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg is the first entry in the Disney Fairies series. In it, Tinker Bell and three fairy friends are faced with the task of protecting the egg responsible for keeping Neverland's inhabitants young.

Tinkerbell by Diarmuid Byron O'Connor, commissioned by Great Ormond Street Hospital London in 2005.

A bronze statue by London born sculptor Diarmuid Bryon O'Connor was commissioned by Great Ormond Street Hospital - to whom Barrie bequeathed the copyright to the character - to be added to his four foot statue of Peter Pan, wresting a thimble from Peter's hand. The figure has a 9.5 inch wingspan and is 7 inches high, said to be the smallest statue in London. It was unveiled on September 29, 2005 by Sophie Countess of Wessex.

She has been characterised by illustrators Brian Froud, and Myrea Pettit. In the 2000s, she became an icon for some urban girls, many of them sporting tattoos or pictures of her.

See also

• Tinkerbell effect