The character of Ruth Handler is featured in the new movie “Barbie,” and she is described as the inventor of the Barbie doll, having named the famous toy after her own daughter, Barbara Handler Segal.
In the “Barbie” movie, Handler is played by Rhea Perlman, and she has a sit down with Barbie’s character, played by Margot Robbie.
According to Jewish Women’s Archive, “In 1959, Handler created the Barbie doll, which she named after her daughter and which proved to be the most popular doll in America, soon followed by the Ken doll, named after her son.”
However, what is the real story of Ruth Handler, her daughter, son, and the Barbie and Ken dolls?
Here’s what you need to know:
Ruth Handler Named the ‘Barbie’ Doll After Her Daughter Barbara & the ‘Ken’ Doll After Her Son, Ken
GettyRuth Handler, Mattel Inc. co-founder and inventor of the Barbie Doll, displays the special 40th Anniversary Barbie at a press conference 07 February in New York City.
According to a biography for her by PBS, Ruth Moskowicz “was born into a family of Russian Jewish immigrants in Denver, Colorado in 1916. She married her high school boyfriend, an artistic young man named Elliot Handler, and they moved to Los Angeles in 1938.”
Elliot and Ruth Handler started the company Mattel together during World War II, along with partner Harold Matson, according to PBS. Elliot Handler made toy furniture in the beginning, the site reported.
According to PBS, the Handlers had two children – named Barbara and Ken – and Ruth Handler was inspired to create the Barbie doll after seeing a doll that looked like an adult woman during a trip to Europe. At that time, most girls played with baby dolls, the site reported.
By the 1960s, Mattel was worth $10 million, PBS reported.
According to People Magazine, though, an alternative origin story involves Ruth Handler being inspired to create the Barbie doll after watching her daughter play with paper dolls.
“I discovered something very important: They were using these dolls to project their dreams of their own futures as adult women.… Wouldn’t it be great if we could take that play pattern and three-dimensionalize it?” she said in her biography, according to People.
However, Ruth Handler told BBC that a Swiss doll sparked her idea, saying,
We passed a toy store and there in the window was a beautiful display of an adult-figured doll about 11.5, 12 inches tall, and this doll was sitting on a rope swing dressed in a very European ski clothes, and there were six or seven other of the same dolls each with a different European type ski outfit, where Barbara and I thought the dolls were just gorgeous. We just flipped – the doll’s name was Lilli.
Barbara Handler ‘Hated Being Known as the Inspiration for the Barbie Doll,’ Ruth Handler Said
GettyBarbara Handler Segal, whose mother, Ruth Handler, created and named the Barbie doll after her, is surrounded by school children during a ceremony in which her hand and footprints were placed in wet cement in front of the Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard 13 November 2002 in Hollywood, CA.
Ruth Handler spoke to BBC about the Barbie doll, and said, when she took it to a toy fair in 1959, reaction was not entirely positive. She told BBC:
Half of our buyers really didn’t like it. The men felt that women would not buy a doll with a woman’s body – with breasts and narrow waistlines and narrow ankles, this adult sexy-looking doll. Men felt that their wives would not want it and that it wouldn’t be right for a child to have that – they were wrong. Women, on the other hand, instantly flipped for that doll. The dolls no sooner landed on the counter than they were snatched up by the women buying them for their daughters.
Ruth told BBC that her daughter Barbara “hated being known as the inspiration for the Barbie doll – it bothered her.”
Barbara Handler told the network:
It was just very odd – people were coming up to me, asking me for my autograph. When people came up and say to me, ‘Oh, you’re the real Barbie,’ I couldn’t understand it because that’s just a name that was given to the doll, but a lot of people thought that they modelled it after me and they made it look like me, and that I was supposed to be it. That’s not true.
According to TMZ, Barbara Handler liked Robbie’s portrayal of the doll in the “Barbie” movie. Ken Handler is now deceased, the site reported.
Ken Handler told the Los Angeles Times in 1989, “Ken doll is Malibu. He goes to the beach and surfs. He is all these perfect American things.”
He added that he was nothing like the doll, telling the Times that he “played the piano and went to movies with subtitles. I was a nerd—a real nerd. All the girls thought I was a jerk.”
Ruth Handler Developed Prosthetics for Breast Cancer Survivors
Getty A Barbie model (2nd L) waves after the opening bell was rung 09 March 1999 at the New York Stock Exchange. The ceremony was to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Mattel, Inc. doll as the company sponsored “Women and Girls on Wall Street” day. Also helping to ring the bell was Barbie’s creator, Ruth Handler (C) and Catherine Kinney of the NYSE (L).
According to Jewish Women’s Archive, “Ruth Mosko Handler is best known as the inventor of the Barbie doll, but her most important work may be her prosthetics for survivors of breast cancer.”
Ruth Handler survived cancer and was forced out of Mattel in 1975, Jewish Women’s Archive reported.
According to Entertainment Tonight, in 1978, Ruth Handler “was indicted on charges of fraud and false reporting to the Securities and Exchange Commission.” She was sentenced to a fine and community service, according to ET.
She died in April 2002 after surgery for colon cancer, the site reported.