Ruth Marianna Handler net worth is $100 Million. Also know about Ruth Marianna Handler bio, salary, height, age weight, relationship and more …

Ruth Marianna Handler Wiki Biography

Ruth Marianna Handler (nee Mosco) was born on the 4th November 1916, in Denver, Colorado, USA, and was a businesswoman, inventor, entrepreneur, and writer, best known for inventing the Barbie doll in 1950s. Her career started in 1940s with the founding of Elzac, and she co-founded several other companies before her death in 2002.

Have you ever wondered how rich Ruth Handler was at the time of her death? According to authoritative sources, it has been estimated that Handler’s net worth was as high as $100 million, an amount earned through her successful career in business.

Ruth Handler was the youngest of ten children in the family of Polish Jewish immigrants. Her mother was Ida Mosco (nee Rubinstein) and her father was Jacob Mosco, a blacksmith who left Poland with his family in order to avoid serving in the Russian army. When she was only sixteen and in high school, she met the man who would become her husband and business partner, Elliot Handler. They moved to Los Angeles, California where he studied at the Art Center School of Design, and she found a job as a secretary at Paramount Studios. The couple’s first breakthrough in the world of business was the founding of Elzac, together with their financial partner Zachary. The company was active in the 1940s, and it produced figural costume jewelry brooches. Though the business grew quickly, the Handlers decided to move on to something more ambitious, and founded another company called Mattel, this time collaborating with designer Harold “Matt” Matson. They began with manufacturing picture frames, but soon moved on to toy business, making doll house furniture. Their net worth was already well established.

Ruth’s creativity and marketing genius were mostly responsible for launching Mattel into the giant it became in the 1950s. First, she took a different approach to marketing campaign for their toys, as instead of magazines and catalogues, Ruth suggested that they advertise on television. For that purpose, Mattel bought sponsorship of the new Disney program “The Mickey Mouse Club”, and subsequently saw their sales skyrocket. Next, Ruth realized that the toy market lacked adult-looking dolls for girls, who would then be able to play act their aspirations and desires for the future; so, the Barbie doll was born and presented to the world at the American Toy Fair in New York City in 1959. Mattel sold over 350 000 dolls that first year, and the demand only grew in the following year, thanks to their widespread television marketing. The Barbie world soon expanded, adding her boyfriend Ken and many other friends and family. The two main toys were named after the Handler’s children, Barbara and Kenneth.

However, the company ran into difficulties in the 1970s, with Ruth even being accused of fraud, for which she was sentenced to community service. The couple left Mattel after that, but Ruth soon founded a new company, this time manufacturing prosthetic breasts for mastectomy survivors, such as herself. She decided on that line of business after she saw that there were no realistic, quality offers of such prosthetics on the market. The company was called Ruthton, and it functioned successfully for many years, though it never reached the success of Mattel.

Apart from her career in business and marketing, Ruth also dabbled in writing, having written the film “Barbie and the Rockers: Out of this World” (1987).

In later years, the Handlers lived a quiet life in California, until Ruth’s death in 2002, from complications following a colon cancer surgery. She was survived by her husband of sixty-four years, and two children.

IMDB Wikipedia $100 million 1916 1916-11-04 2002 2002-04-27 Aaron Mosko Actor April 27 Barbara Handler Businesswoman California Century City Colorado Denver Elliot Handler Ida Rubenstein Jacob Mosko Joe Mosko Kenneth Handler November 4 Ruth Handler Net Worth Ruth Marianna Handler Sarah Greenwald United States University of Denver

Ruth Marianna Handler Quick Info

Ruth Marianna Handler Quotes

• Every little girl needed a doll through which to project herself into her dream of her future. If she was going to do role playing of what she would be like when she was 16 or 17, it was a little stupid to play with a doll that had a flat chest. So I gave it beautiful breasts.
• My whole philosophy of Barbie was that through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be. Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices.

Ruth Marianna Handler Important Facts

• She named the Barbie doll after her daughter Barbara Handler.
• In 1942 they teamed up with another industrial designer, Harold “Matt” Mattson, to launch a business manufacturing picture frames. They later launched a sideline making dollhouse furniture. Within a few years, the company turned profitable and began to specialize in toys. It was called Mattel, fashioned from the “Matt” in Matson and “El” in Elliot.
• In 1978, she and several other former officers of Mattel were indicted on charges of fraud and false reporting to the Securities and Exchange Commission. She pleaded no contest to the charges, which investigators said resulted from attempts to influence stock prices, and was fined and sentenced to community service.
• She was a founder of Mattel and helped run the company for 30 years, until she and her husband, then co-chairmen, resigned in 1975.
• She was found to have breast cancer in 1970 and had her left breast removed. She later developed a line of artificial breasts made of foam and silicon that she called “Nearly Me”. She ran the breast prosthesis company, Ruthton Corporation, for 15 years, before selling it to a division of Kimberly-Clark.
• Survived by a brother, five grandchildren; and one great-granddaughter.
• Born Ruth Mosko, she was the youngest of 10 children of Polish immigrants who settled in Denver. Her father was a blacksmith who deserted the Russian army. Her mother was illiterate when she arrived in the United States in the steerage section of the steamship. Her mother’s health was so frail that Mrs.Handler was reared by an older sister. Ruth was 19 when she left Denver for a vacation in Hollywood and wound up staying. Her high school sweetheart, Elliot Handler, followed her west and married her in 1938.
• The grown-up doll was partly inspired by Blonde Lilli, a German-made doll Ruth Handler had come across during a trip in Switzerland
• Ruth and her husband started Mattel in a Los Angeles garage
• “Barbie the teenage model” made its début at the American Toy Fair in 1959, becoming the success of the New York show with 350,000 units sold in the first year
• Creator of the Barbie doll.
• Children: Barbara and Ken

Ruth Marianna Handler Filmography