Around The Arts

LOS ANGELES -- Ruth Handler, who created Barbie, the world's most popular doll and an American icon that helped shape girls' dreams while infuriating feminists, has died. She was 85.\nHandler, who also co-founded the Mattel toy company, died at Century City Hospital Saturday morning of complications from colon surgery she underwent three months ago, said Elliot Handler, her husband.\nSince Handler's creation, named for her daughter Barbara, was introduced in 1959, it has become a touchstone of cultural politics.\nThe impossibly well-endowed doll -- her original figure would be about 39-18-33 if she were human -- has drawn the ire of feminists, inspired artists and intrigued academics around the world. Barbie even was placed in the official "America's Time Capsule" buried in 1976.\nThe original blue-eyed, blonde fashion model has morphed over the decades into a variety of ethnic looks and has had many careers, from astronaut to veterinarian.\nMore than one billion have been sold in 150 countries.\n"My whole philosophy of Barbie was that through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be," Handler wrote in a 1994 autobiography. "Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices."\nHandler kept a gold-plated Barbie in her Century City high-rise.\nBarbie's birth came at a time when the usual doll was a baby. Handler decided to create a more mature plaything after noticing that her daughter liked to play with paper cutout dolls of teen-agers and career women.\nMattel's male ad executives were unimpressed with the idea, but several years later Handler got the doll into production.\nHer concept was modeled on a sexy German precursor called Lilli, based on a comic strip.\nBarbie was more innocent. The 11 1/2-inch-tall plastic toy was a fresh-faced Midwesterner with a ponytail and a black-and-white striped swimsuit. Barbie debuted at the American Toy Fair in New York City in 1959. She was an instant hit and in the first year 351,000 dolls were sold at $3 each.\nBarbie went on to make a fortune for Mattel, which sold not only versions of the doll but an expanding number of outfits and accessories, not to mention Barbie's boyfriend Ken, named for Handler's son; her little sister, Skipper, and pals Midge and Christie.\nLater dolls were named for Handler's grandchildren.\nBut things went downhill in the 1970s. Mattel began to diversify away from toys and the Handlers were forced out of the company. In 1978, Handler was indicted for mail fraud and false reporting to the Securities and Exchange Commission. She pleaded no contest, was fined $57,000 and sentenced to 2,500 hours of community service.\nHandler, who struggled with breast cancer and had a mastectomy in 1970, later blamed her illness for distracting her from business concerns.