<P> Maurice (father), </P> <Tr> <Th> Nationality </Th> <Td> French </Td> </Tr> <P> Belle is a fictional character who appears in Walt Disney Pictures' 30th animated feature film Beauty and the Beast (1991). Originally voiced by American actress and singer Paige O'Hara, Belle is the non-conforming daughter of an inventor . Belle yearns to abandon her predictable village life in return for adventure . When her father Maurice is imprisoned by a cold - hearted beast, Belle offers him her own freedom in exchange for her father's, and eventually learns to love the Beast despite his unsightly outward appearance . </P> <P> Walt Disney Studios chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg commissioned Beauty and the Beast as an animated musical with a strong heroine and hired first - time screenwriter Linda Woolverton to write it . Basing her on the heroine of Jeanne - Marie Leprince de Beaumont's fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast", Woolverton adapted Belle into a stronger and less passive character for the film . Inspired by the women's rights movement, Woolverton wanted Belle to be a unique Disney heroine different from The Little Mermaid's popular Ariel, and thus deliberately conceived the character as a feminist in an effort to avoid the criticism Disney had long been receiving due to the studio's reputation of depicting its female characters as victims . </P>

Who plays belle in beauty and the beast cartoon