Barbara Handler

Barbara Handler was born in Los Angeles in 1941 to Ruth and Elliot Handler. She loved playing with paper dolls as a young girl, and during a family trip in 1956, as they walked down a street in Switzerland, Barbara stumbled upon a curvy plastic doll in a store window, which inspired her mom, Ruth, to create the Barbie doll in 1959, and Ken in 1961.

Barbara has told the press that while her mother…