Barbie Designer was a Pervert?
Categories: Life & style, In the news, Toys & games
Mattel's beloved Barbie will turn 50 on March 9th and already the stories celebrating her life and style are popping up on the Web. But, according to a new book, there are hidden secrets in the fashionable, anatomically-impossible doll's past that aren't so pretty.Jerry Oppenheimer's Toy Monster: The Big, Bad World of Mattel reveals that Barbie's designer, Jack Ryan, was a "full-blown seventies-style swinger" with "a manic need for sexual gratification." Oppenheimer claims that Ryan often patronized call girls and streetwalkers and preferred his women busty and blond, just like Barbie. In fact, Ryan's friend, Stephen Gnass, says that even Barbie herself was a target of Ryan's perversion. "When Jack talked about creating Barbie . . . it was like listening to somebody talk about a sexual episode, almost like listening to a sexual pervert . . ."
The book includes details of the lives of Barbie and Ken's namesakes - the children of Mattel founders Ruth and Elliot Handler. Apparently Ken Handler was not exactly proud of his plastic image and was mortified to discover the doll had no genitalia whatsoever. And for those who have long suspected that Ken is gay, Oppenheimer provides confirmation. Despite marrying and fathering three children, Oppenheimer insists that Ken was a closeted homosexual who was diagnosed with AIDS in 1990. Ken died in 1994, but his obituary makes no mention of the disease.
The book is scheduled for release next month and promises to be a fascinating look at the dark side of the toy business. Just don't leave it laying around where the kids can see it!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Robin Gerber 1-10-2009 @ 3:42PM
Ruth Handler, founder of Mattel, was the creator of Barbie. Ryan worked for her as head of Research and Design. Handler, a powerhouse entrepreneur in a man's world, built Mattel into the biggest toy company in the world. But she overreached and was convicted of fraud in the 1970's, forced out of Mattel and rebounded with a new company making prosthetic breasts for women, like her, who had lost a breast to cancer.
READ THE FIRST BIOGRAPHY OF HANDLER:
"BARBIE AND RUTH" (Harper/Collins) due out February 3rd.
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