Victoria Smurfit

Victoria Smurfit is the Irish actress who portrays Cruella De Vil on ABC's Once Upon a Time.

Biography
Victoria Smurfit was born in 1974 in Dublin, Ireland to Caroline and Dermot Smurfit. She has one brother also named Dermot Smurfit. The family, headed by Victoria's uncle Michael Smurfit, sponsors a number of sporting events including the Smurfit European Open and the Champion Hurdle. The family is also associated with Smurfit Business School in University College Dublin.

Educated at St. Columba's College in Dublin and St. George's School in Ascot, England, she later finished her studies at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. In 1997, Victoria introduced herself to television viewers on the BBC series Ivanhoe followed by the BBC miniseries Berkeley Square. Her breakthrough role came on the BBC series Ballykissangel. Other series roles include those on the Channel 4 drama North Square, Granada TV's Cold Feet, ITV's Trial &amp; Retribution and the Irish RTÉ series The Clinic. Among her other TV projects are telefilms such as The Shell Seekers with Vanessa Redgrave, Agatha Christie's Marple: The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side and The Hallmark Channel's Honeymoon for One, a guest-starring role on the ABC series Missing, and a starring spot on NBC's short-lived vampire drama Dracula as Lady Jane Wetherby. On the big screen, Victoria has shown both her drama and comedy talents in such feature films as The Run of the Country, The Leading Man, Romance and Rejection, The Wedding Tackle, The Last Great Wilderness, Bulletproof Monk, Danny Boyle's The Beach and the Chris and Paul Weitz film About a Boy with Hugh Grant.

She married advertising executive Douglas Baxter in 2000, and they have three children; Evie Dorothy, Ridley Belle and Flynn Alexander.

Appearances
Note: "Archive" denotes archive footage.