Ruth Handler was the ambitious career woman who created Barbie and changed America's toy industry. But a tax fraud scandal ultimately saw her forced out of the company she co-founded, Mattel.
abc.net.au/news/the-real-story-behind-barbie-creator-ruth-handler/102672884In the endless stream of buzz that has taken over the internet since Barbie's cinematic release, one meme about the real people who inspired the story stood out.
In glimpses over a few short scenes, the audience learns little snippets of the mysterious mentor-like figure played by Rhea Perlman, before she finally spells it out in full for Margot Robbie's Barbie.Ruth Moskowicz was born to immigrant parents in 1916 in the city of Denver, Colorado and was the youngest of 10 children.
On a whim, she took a job at Paramount Studios and moved to the big metropolis with her high school sweetheart, Elliot Handler, in 1938. Within three years, the young couple — along with their friend Harold Matson — would form one of the biggest toy brands in the world. The entire net worth of Mattel was spent on three ads for its most popular products, which would feature during Disney's television show, The Mickey Mouse Club.Mattel's sales went from $US3 million to $US14 millionMattel had begun to edge out its biggest rivals, Louis Marx and Company and Kenner Products, in the toy sector. By the end of the decade, its revenues would exceed them.It would turn Mattel into an international juggernaut and revolutionise America's toy industry.
Japanese manufacturers reacted with distaste at the designs, and struggled to find a suitable plastic, according to Gerber. A detailed marketing plan revealed why Barbie was struggling to cut through and when the produce was unveiled on television months later, she was marketed not as a doll but as a model for young girls.
The company was pumping out new products at pace and diversifying acquisitions to everything from playground equipment to pet supplies. She clashed with other top executives over the direction of the company and several investments that went south.Ruth Handler headed the corporation she had founded for years before being ousted in a financial scandal.
Using a practice known as "bill and hold" to invoice their clients before orders had been shipped, they were able to report massively inflated earnings. As the company's position worsened, the stock price plummeted, raising red flags with the Securities Exchange Commission . "I went into retirement in 1975 and I hated it. I was as low as a person could get emotionally, psychologically," Handler told columnist MG Lord for her 1994 book, Forever Barbie.Inspired by her own struggles coming to terms with her post-mastectomy body, Handler started a line of prosthetic inserts under a new company, this time bearing her name: Ruthton.
With a team of middle-aged women, many of whom had also lost their breasts to cancer, Ruth took her new invention on tour, offering free fittings in doctor's offices and department stores.In February 1978, Ruth Handler was indicted by a grand jury for conspiracy, mail fraud and making false statements to the SEC.falsifying records to inflate the company's value on the stock market
"She was president of Mattel … but she stops short of admitting any knowledge of the fraudulent number crunching happening all around her," Gerber wrote in Barbie and Ruth. Ruth Handler named the iconic doll after her daughter, Barbara, and Barbie's sidekick was named after her son, Ken.
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