Elliot Handler

Isadore "Izzy" Elliot Handler was born to a Jewish family in Chicago, Illinois, on April 9, 1916. Handler's parents were Ukrainian Jews who largely spoke Yiddish within their household. The family moved out of Chicago, and Handler grew up on the west side of Denver, Colorado. He studied industrial design at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. In 1929, he met his future wife Ruth Mosko at a B'nai B'rith dance for teenagers. They dated on and off for years, and were married in June 1938. Shortly after their marriage, his new wife Ruth requested he change his name: partially due to her preferring his middle name "Elliot" over "Izzy", and partially from her fears of American antisemitism toward a name frequently associated with being Jewish like Isadore. He complied. The couple had two children: Barbara, who was the namesake of Barbie dolls; and Kenneth, the namesake of Ken dolls. While a struggling art student and designer of light fixtures, Handler partnered with Harold Matson to design a realistic-looking miniature piano that received roughly 300,000 orders; however, they mispriced the product and lost a dime on each one produced.

Handler died of heart failure at home in Century City, a district of Los Angeles, California, at age 95 on July 21, 2011. Ruth Handler, Elliot's wife, died in 2002; their son Ken died in 1994.