Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty/Warner Bros.
There is a woman who lives in a closet at Mattel, tucked away from all the important exec conversations, cast out from her dominion. In the Barbie movie, she is almost the only woman we see at the toy company’s headquarters. Unlike the rest of the building’s hollow cubicles, gray decor, and maze-like structure, this woman resides in a quaint cottage that somehow fits into a small storage space. Her name is Ruth Handler, and you may be surprised to hear that she’s actually the creator of Barbie.
(Warning: Spoilers ahead for Barbie.)
That she is sequestered away in the Mattel building is one of the many fictionalized aspects of Barbie. Handler, who is played by Rhea Perlman in the film, passed away in 2002. She never, of course, actually lived in a closet at Mattel, nor is her spirit locked away in the skyscraper. In fact, Handler was the co-founder of Mattel and served as the president of the toy company from its founding in 1945 up until 1975.