King Leopold

"I seek nothing more than the happiness of all who set foot in my kingdom."

- King Leopold to the Genie

King Leopold is a minor character on Once Upon a Time. He débuts in the eleventh episode of the first season, and is played by guest star Richard Schiff.

King Leopold is the father of Snow White and the husband of the Evil Queen.

Season One
King Leopold is first introduced in the episode Fruit of the Poisonous Tree. He is walking along the shoreline of a body of water and stumbles across the Genie of Agrabah's magical lamp. He rubs it out of curiosity and, to his surprise, a genie comes out of it and says that he can grant him three wishes, but warns the king that all magic comes with a price. Realizing that he only wants to happiness of all who live in his kingdom, King Leopold first wishes the genie free, and then wishes that his third wish be used for the genie's own use.

King Leopold then takes his new friend to the palace, where the genie meets Regina, Leopold's second wife, and Snow White, Leopold's daughter. A few days after, Leopold calls the genie to his room and tells him how he has found his wife's diary and how he knows her heart belongs to another. He wants the genie to find this man for him, but, unbeknownst to Leopold at the time, the genie was that man.

The genie, in turn, finds that Regina has been locked inside her room under Leopold's orders. He manages to get inside with a box that Henry, her father, brought him, and discovers that a pair of the most poisonous snakes in the world are in that box. Regina is about to commit suicide with the snakes, but the genie stops her and suggests that they kill Leopold with them instead.

Later that night, the genie sneaks out of Regina's room with the box of snakes and dumps it on the sleeping King Leopold's bed. King Leopold wakes up just as the snakes are about to bite him. The genie apologizes and confesses about his affair with the queen. Before he dies, King Leopold reveals to the genie that he should have never made his first wish.

Appearances

 * Fruit of the Poisonous Tree
 * The Stable Boy

Trivia

 * Leopold means "brave people".
 * He's the first person to die of a snake bite which was set up by his wife who used his former friend against him.
 * In Heart of Darkness we find out from his daughter Snow, that he built a summer place for her late mother and its suggested from Fruit of the Poisonous Tree that he can't get over his late wife, despite his new wife Regina and in The Stable Boy it was confirmed that he was only reason he was looking for a another wife to be a mother to his daughter Snow.