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Speaker 1: All right, it's nineteen fifty nine, and this is the

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Speaker 1: story of a woman who pushed her all male corporate

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Speaker 1: board to let her make a doll with boobs, ran

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Speaker 1: a company that was the first to market directly to children. Yikes,

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Speaker 1: and was indicted for corporate fraud. But she was also

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Speaker 1: an amazing success story. I'm Patty Steele. Barbie creator Ruth

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Speaker 1: Handler changed the way kids play forever. That's next on

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Speaker 1: the backstory. Hey, I grew up with Barbie dolls and

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Speaker 1: I even paid money to see the Barbie movie back

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three. I'm sure you did too, but

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Speaker 1: I had no idea about the exploits of Barbie creator

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Speaker 1: Ruth Handler. Then backstory listener Sandra Nissinovich Spinelli from Brooklyn,

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Speaker 1: New York, Hope I pronounced your name right, messaged me

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Speaker 1: to say you gotta check this woman out. Okay, you

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Speaker 1: may have seen the Barbie movie, but if you didn't,

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Speaker 1: you certainly know about it since it took in a

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Speaker 1: mon was one and a half billion dollars at the

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Speaker 1: box office, and was nominated for eight Oscars. And maybe

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Speaker 1: there's a chance you had a Barbie when you were

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Speaker 1: a kid. But where did it all begin. A woman

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Speaker 1: named Ruth Handler was the creator and marketing genius behind

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Speaker 1: the original Barbie doll back in nineteen fifty nine. She

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Speaker 1: started out as a business partner with her husband, Elliot,

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Speaker 1: and another guy named Matt. They named their company Mattel

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Speaker 1: Matt for Matt and Elle for Elliot. They didn't include Ruth,

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Speaker 1: but that would have been a weird inclusion. How do

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Speaker 1: you do Ruth into that? They began in the nineteen

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Speaker 1: forties by making picture frames when they had a bunch

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Speaker 1: of leftover wood and plastic, which was a pretty new

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Speaker 1: substance back in the early nineteen fifties. They started making

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Speaker 1: doll furniture, which sold really well. Then they decided they

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Speaker 1: would make other toys, including baby dolls. Now Ruth, who

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Speaker 1: freely admitted wanting to be a career woman first, despite

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Speaker 1: being a mom to two children, wanted little girls to

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Speaker 1: be able to aspire to being other things besides a mother.

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Speaker 1: All the popular dolls in the nineteen fifties were baby

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Speaker 1: dolls with names like Betsy, Wetsie, Tiny Tears, and Chatty Cathy,

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Speaker 1: which was a Mattel creation. But Ruth saw her daughter Barbie. Yes,

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Speaker 1: her name was Barbie playing with paper dolls who were adults,

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Speaker 1: dressing them up and inventing stories about them. So Ruth

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Speaker 1: wanted to make a three D doll out of plastic,

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Speaker 1: but she ran into a problem with her own company.

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Speaker 1: The men on the board at Mattel thought the idea

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Speaker 1: of an adult doll with breasts being sold to little

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Speaker 1: girls was I don't know, kind of creepy. They said no,

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Speaker 1: but she was a tough chick, and after showing the

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Speaker 1: success in Europe of an adult female doll that sold

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Speaker 1: really well, finally she got Barbie made. In nineteen fifty nine,

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Speaker 1: Mattel took Barbie to a toy fair and they got,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, crickets. About half of their longtime customers

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Speaker 1: had zero interest in a doll with boobs, but for

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Speaker 1: the buyers who took a chance, the doll flew off

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Speaker 1: the shelves. Here's what lit the fire for all those

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Speaker 1: little girls who had to have a Barbie doll. Good

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Speaker 1: old fashioned marketing, but it was actually completely new marketing.

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Speaker 1: Like it or not. Mattel was the very first company

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Speaker 1: to market their products directly to little kids, rather than

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Speaker 1: to moms and dads who did the buying and believe me,

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Speaker 1: as a mom of three kids, there's no more intense

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Speaker 1: pressure on a parent than a kid who really really

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Speaker 1: wants something. You see. Years before Barbie, back in nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty five, Mattel had taken a huge gamble. Walt Disney

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Speaker 1: himself came to them and asked them to be the

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Speaker 1: sponsors for his new TV show, The Mickey mouse Club.

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Speaker 1: He wanted five hundred thousand dollars for fifteen minutes of

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Speaker 1: airtime on the show each week. Tell was only worth

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Speaker 1: five hundred thousand dollars at that point, but they decided

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Speaker 1: to take the risk. Of course, The Mickey Mouse Club

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Speaker 1: was an enormous hit, so when Barbie came along, they

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Speaker 1: already had a huge audience to expose their busty doll to,

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Speaker 1: and by nineteen sixty three, Mattel had sold two million Barbies,

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Speaker 1: not to mention all the separately sold fashion stuff like dresses, shoes, hats,

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Speaker 1: and of course, eventually more merchandising like Barbie's Boyfriend Ken

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Speaker 1: named after Ruth's son Ken and her best friend Midge,

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Speaker 1: as well as Barbie carrs and dream houses. I mean,

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Speaker 1: imagine all those little eyes glued to their black and

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Speaker 1: white TVs for the Mickey Mouse Club, dreaming of their

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Speaker 1: Barbie dolls and how to dress them up. Ruth became

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Speaker 1: one of the most successful executives in the toy industry,

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Speaker 1: and in fact, the only female executive in the world

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Speaker 1: of toys. Her company went on to create toys like

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Speaker 1: hot Wheels, Matchbox, Thomas and Friends an American Girl. Not

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Speaker 1: everything she did was a success. Ruth tried to introduce

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Speaker 1: not a pregnant Barbie, but a pregnant Midge. She had

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Speaker 1: a magnetic detachable pregnant belly with a baby inside. Not

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Speaker 1: a success since parents thought it encouraged teen pregnancy. So

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Speaker 1: Future Midge Dolls had her dump her husband Alan and

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Speaker 1: her baby and come back single. In the nineteen seventies,

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Speaker 1: Ruth also introduced a line of Skipper dolls Barbie's Little Sister,

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Speaker 1: called Growing Up Skipper. The dolls simulated puberty. If you

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Speaker 1: twisted her wrist, she'd grow an inch taller, rotate her arm,

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Speaker 1: and breasts popped out from her rubber chest. Folks called

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Speaker 1: it perverted. It was discontinued, and finally, to reach disabled children,

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Speaker 1: matel put out Share a Smile Becky. She had a

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Speaker 1: pink wheelchair, but it wouldn't fit in Barbie's home or

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Speaker 1: her car, and Becky's long hair tangled in the wheels,

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Speaker 1: So again discontinued, and the women's movement not really thrilled

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Speaker 1: with Barbie, especially because of her measurements. The scale on

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five's Barbie Sleepy Time Gals slumber Party showed

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Speaker 1: her weighing one hundred and ten pounds, even though the

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Speaker 1: American female then averaged one hundred and forty. They figured

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Speaker 1: if Barbie was five toot six, she would measure thirty

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Speaker 1: nine eighteen for her waist and thirty three for her hips,

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Speaker 1: with a size three shoe and a body fat percentage

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Speaker 1: so low she wouldn't be able to get her period,

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Speaker 1: a symptom of anorexia. Barbie needed reinvention, but then there

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Speaker 1: was real trouble for Ruth. In nineteen seventy eight, Ruth

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Speaker 1: and four other Mattel employees were indicted for inflating sales

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Speaker 1: records to bump up Mattel stock. She took the fall,

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Speaker 1: but she claimed her lack of judgment was due to

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Speaker 1: her breast cancer. She was sentenced to forty one years

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Speaker 1: in prison, but that sentence was reduced. She left Tell,

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Speaker 1: paid fifty seven thousand dollars in reparations, got just five

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Speaker 1: years probation, and did five hundred hours of charity work

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Speaker 1: helping folks on probation re enter the job market. Meantime,

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Speaker 1: Barbie was making a comeback, but then in the nineteen nineties,

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Speaker 1: more backlash. Teen Talk Barbie's voice was programmed to say,

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Speaker 1: I love shopping, Okay, meet me at the mall? Will

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Speaker 1: we ever have enough clothes? Math? Class is tough? And

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Speaker 1: let's plan our dream wedding. A group called Barbie's Liberation

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Speaker 1: Organization did surgery on three hundred teen Talk Barbie's and

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Speaker 1: Gi Joe's in New York and California, switching their voice boxes.

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Speaker 1: So Barbie yelled eat lead, Cobra, attack, and vengeance is mine,

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Speaker 1: while tough Guy Gi Joe perd Let's plan our dream wedding.

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Speaker 1: They planted them back on store shelves with a note

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Speaker 1: that said call your local news. Mattel changed teen Tog

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Speaker 1: Barbie's chat lines. Like any great entrepreneur, Ruth had another

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Speaker 1: act in her After her breast cancer in the nineteen seventies,

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Speaker 1: She'd gotten a single mistectomy, which in those days were

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Speaker 1: really disfiguring, and there were no implants. Ruth said that

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Speaker 1: the operation left her feeling dewomanized. Doctor suggested she stuff

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Speaker 1: her empty bra cup with stockings, but instead she launched

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Speaker 1: a new company called nearly Me, which made comfortable prosthetic

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Speaker 1: breasts in thirty sizes that looked really natural. She was

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Speaker 1: in her sixties and she had a sales team of

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Speaker 1: mostly middle aged cancer survivors. She even fitted former First

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Speaker 1: Lady Betty Ford after her cancer surgery. Nobody talked openly

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Speaker 1: about breast cancer back then, but Ruth spoke out for

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Speaker 1: early detection. She even did what she called a strip

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Speaker 1: act for a People magazine photographer, taking her shirt off

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Speaker 1: and demonstrating similarities between the real and the fake boob.

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Speaker 1: She went on the Dick Cavic Show and asked him

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Speaker 1: to feel her up on National TV, which he, of

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Speaker 1: course did. Ruth had been a huge success creating the

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Speaker 1: first mass produced fictional doll with breasts and creating breasts

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Speaker 1: for real women who were cancer survivors. She loved to say,

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Speaker 1: I have lived my life revolving entirely around breasts. Ruth

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Speaker 1: Handler died in two thousand and two at the age

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Speaker 1: of eighty five. She was an amazing example of trusting

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Speaker 1: your gut. Got to thank backstory listener Sandra Nissinovich Spinelli again.

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Speaker 1: Hope I pronounced it right. She's from Brooklyn, New York,

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Speaker 1: and she suggested this peak into the Barbie story. Hope

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Speaker 1: you liked the Backstory with Patty Steele. I would love

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Speaker 1: it if you would subscribe or follow for free to

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Speaker 1: get new episodes delivered automatically. And if, like Sandra, you

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Speaker 1: have a story you'd like me to cover, feel free

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Speaker 1: to DM me on Facebook It's Patty Steele and on

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Speaker 1: Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories a

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Speaker 1: production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis Durand Group, and

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Speaker 1: Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our writer

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Speaker 1: Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday.

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Speaker 1: Feel free to reach out to me with comments and

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Speaker 1: even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and

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Speaker 1: on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the

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Speaker 1: Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history you didn't

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Speaker 1: know you needed to know