My Genealogy Hound

Ruth Handler, creator of the Barbie Doll, grave and tombstone, Hillside Memorial Park, Culver City, California, photos

The tombstone and grave site of Ruth Handler. Handler was born as Ruth Marianna Mosko on November 4, 1916 in Denver, Colorado as the youngest daughter in a family of ten children born to Polish immigrants. Ruth Handler served as the president of Mattel, Inc., a company formed earlier by her husband, Elliott Handler and a business partner, Harold Matson. Ruth Handler is best known as the creator of the Barbie doll which was introduced by Mattel in 1959 as a doll with an adult figure at a time when dolls were typically modeled after babies. The name for the new doll was Barbie, named after her own daughter, Barbara. A later addition was the Ken doll which was named after her son, Kenneth. Barbie dolls and and their related accessories became the greatest selling brand of dolls in history and continue to be sold around the world in massive numbers more than fifty years after their introduction.

Ruth Handler died on April 27, 2002, in Los Angeles, California. She was 85 years old. Her remains are buried in Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery, Culver City, California. See the additional photo below.

The graves of Ruth and Elliott Handler in Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery, Culver City, California. The grave of Ruth Handler is at the upper left. Her husband, Elliott Handler is buried at the upper right.