Cinderella's Father

Cinderella's father was a good-natured, handsome, and wealthy gentleman, probably a baron or count, in Disney's 1950 hit feature film, Cinderella.

He loved his only daughter dearly and lavished every imaginable care and tenderness on her. His grand chateau attests to his great wealth, which tragically dwindles in his later years and is exhausted. Her mother had died when their daughter was very young.

Despite the fact that he did everything to make life comfortable for his daughter, he was depressed by the death of his wife and felt his daughter needed a maternal figure, so he married again; his second wife being Lady Tremaine, who had two daughters of her own, Anastasia and Drizella. He welcomed his two stepdaughters into the family and it seemed his second marriage ran smoothly until he died.

Upon his untimely death, Lady Tremaine showed her true colors, tyrannically took over his chateau, the small remnant of his money, and even forced his daughter to become a servant.

Role in the film
The narrator described him as "a kind and devoted father, and gave his beloved child every luxury and comfort". Presumably, he acquired the dog, Bruno and the horse, Major, as gifts for her, or it could have been that they originally belonged to him and she inherited them upon his passing.

However, he still felt that she needed a mother's care and hence, he married again. But his choice was, unbeknownst to him, a very bad one: Lady Tremaine was a handsome and dignified woman, with two daughters of her own, but all three of them were actually cruel and selfish.

His second wife and stepdaughters' true nature was hidden deep and well from him while he was alive, however, so he never realized the terrible mistake he had made. Upon his untimely death, all his wealth and his chateau was left to Lady Tremaine who, freed from her husband's watchful eye, revealed her true self, forcing Cinderella to become the servant of her own house, and squandered most of the inherited fortune on her own daughters, whose interests she was grimly determined to advance, even if it is at the very expense of her faultless submissive stepdaughter.

Despite all the abuse and mistreatment she had to endure under her cold, unloving stepfamily, Cinderella remained ever gentle and kind, and finally found the happiness she sought simply by keeping faith in her dreams. Hence, it could be theorized if her father were to look down from heaven, he and his first wife (her biological mother) would definitely be extremely proud of their beloved child, and be considerably consoled that she no longer had to suffer because of his terrible choice of a new wife.

Live-Action Cinderella
In the 2015 live-action reimagining, he will be played by Ben Chaplin.

Trivia

 * According to Disney Villains The Top Secret Files, Lady Tremaine is reading an ad from Cinderella's father, which refers to him as Lord Tremaine meaning Cinderella's last name is also Tremaine. This makes sense, since in the old days the new bride and her children will sometimes take the husband's last name.
 * In the Golden Book from 1952, Cinderella's father is shown as an older gentleman. In another storybook, he is young and handsome.
 * Considering his death was untimely, along with Lady Tremaine's power-hungry, cruel, and manipulative nature, it is possible Cinderella's father was actually murdered by Lady Tremaine, however, nothing in the film suggests this and it is taken as canon that he died a natural death, possibly because of a disease or was murdered by Lady Tremaine herself.
 * Cinderella's father bears similarity to Snow White's in the storybooks: both are widowers who were hit hard by the loss of their wives and remarry out of a desire for family stability, however, both fail to realize (for reasons beyond their power) that their choices put their daughters at a disadvantage.