![]() ![]() According to Gerber, after participating in scrupulously tabulated charity work that she found “humiliating,” Handler was eventually assigned the task of using her business know-how to give other convicts job training. She wanted to create a giveaway program of her Nearly Me prosthetics for underprivileged cancer patients who might otherwise be unable to afford them, but the judge rejected that proposal. Handler could have gotten 41 years in prison, but she still found her comparatively light sentence to be severe. She also used the plastics know-how she’d gathered from years in the toy business to devise prosthetic devices for other women like her and launched an entirely new business, Nearly Me, which still sells products today. That’s true Handler had breast cancer in the 1970s. Perlman’s character tells Barbie that she had a mastectomy. ![]() The full truth of her life, in many cases, is even stranger than even the most die-hard Barbie fans may realize. ![]() But the movie does included several details that are genuine. The real Handler died in 2002 at the age of 85, so her appearance in the movie is more whimsical than realistic. Perlman, best known as the sarcastic waitress Carla from Cheers, appears in the Greta Gerwig–directed film as Ruth Handler-a real-life legend in the toy business who helped turn Mattel into a global powerhouse, in large part thanks to Barbie, introduced in 1959. It’s a moment in which the doll literally meets her maker. Handler seems to know Barbie better than she knows herself, as she should. The addition was just the latest in Barbie's expanded line featuring a wider array of body shapes.Ruth Handler, the grandmotherly figure played by Rhea Perlman in the new Barbie movie, offers compassion and wisdom to Margot Robbie in a moment when her blissful doll-come-to-life faces an existential crisis. In 2019, with the marking of Barbie's 60th anniversary, Mattel released a new Barbie body type that featured a smaller bust, less defined waist and more defined arms. She provided the calculations for Alan Shepherd’s historic first flight into space, John Glenn’s ground-breaking orbit of the earth and the trajectory for Apollo 11’s moon landing. Johnson-who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 by President Barack Obama-was a physicist, space scientist and mathematician at NASA’s Langley Center. Kahlo was not only an inspiring and beloved painter, she was an activist who continues to influence women’s movements today. Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, and the first person ever to fly solo from Hawaii to the U.S. ![]() In 2018, Mattel released a new “Inspiring Women” collection that features three ground-breaking, history-making women- Amelia Earhart, Frida Kahlo and Katherine Johnson. Mattel bought the rights to Lilli, and Handler created her own version.Īmelia Earhart, Frida Kahlo and Katherine Johnson from the Barbie Inspiring Women collection Originally marketed as a racy gag gift that men could buy in tobacco shops, the Lilli doll later became extremely popular with children. Inspired by watching their daughter play with make-believe paper dolls of adult women, Handler realized there was an unfilled niche in the market for a toy that allowed little girls to imagine the future.īarbie’s appearance was modeled after a doll named the Bild Lilli, which had been inspired by a German comic-strip character. She would go on to become one of the most iconic playthings in history.īarbie was the brainchild of Ruth Handler, co-founder (with her husband Elliot) of the toy company Mattel, Inc. The leggy, 11-inch plastic figure-full name: Barbara Millicent Roberts-was the first mass-produced toy doll in the U.S. In March 1959, a doll named "Barbie" launched onto the American toy market, sporting a black-and-white striped bathing suit, pouty red lips and a sassy blonde ponytail. ![]()
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