Tinker Bell is the jealous pixie who glows brightest for Peter Pan. Her voice sings like a tinkling bell and a sprinkle of her pixie dust can make you fly. But this sprite can turn spiteful if she suspects that Peter's attentions are diverted to anyone but herself. It's bad enough that she has to compete with Never Land's other adoring females (the mermaids and Princess Tiger Lily), but now Peter's brought back this Wendy person from London. Tink would lay down her life for Peter, but he's too busy playing Wendy's hero to care. Somehow she'll find a way to settle the score, even if it takes eliminating the competition.
In Sir James M. Barrie's original play, Tinker Bell is traditionally staged as a flying point of light beamed from offstage. Animator Marc Davis' personification of her as a winged pixie with a very womanly figure was widely criticized as too sexually suggestive by Barrie purists, especially after it was rumored that she was modeled after actress Marilyn Monroe. Tink was actually modeled after Margaret Kerry, the actress who performed her live-action reference.
The popular Miss Bell went on to a second career as TV hostess for Disney's anthology series ("Disneyland®," "Walt Disney Presents," "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color," and "The Wonderful World of Disney"), and Tinker Bell still flies through the sky over Disneyland every night in the summer to herald the evening fireworks.
