All language subtitles for Barbie.Uncovered.A.Dream.House.Divided.2024.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC5.1-[YTS.MX]

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I said, "Let's make a doll
with breasts and a narrow waist,

and narrow ankles, and let's make it
look like a teenager."

(UP TEMPO MUSIC PLAYS)

NARRATOR: 65 Years ago,
an icon was born.

(CROWD CHATTERS INDISTINCTLY,
CHEERING)Go, Barbie!

And right now she's bigger
than ever. (CHEERING)

Barbieland feels like
a female utopia.

She's been kind of revolutionary.

You know there's more
than meets the eye.

(LAUGHTER)
All new levels.

(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS)
But you know that already.

This is the story you don't know.

For a start, Barbie had a mum.

I never visualised
that to be Barbie's mom

could be
such an earth-shattering feeling.

And a Dad.

SUSAN THACKER: When I think
about Barbie, I think about Jack.

In Jack's mind, he invented Barbie.
And he did invent Barbie.

And they couldn't have been
more different.

Ruth was a brilliant marketer,
a gambler, a hustler.

(BEEPING)
Jack was an inventor.

He was dyslexic. Never read a book.

He was just a cornucopia of ideas.

It was a match made in heaven...
at first.

Then came the fallout.

ANNIE CONSTANTINESCO:
Jack loved women.

There was beautiful girls
everywhere.

TOM KALINSKE: The rumour is
that he could dial up,

"I want a redhead, I want a blonde."

ANNIE: I never noticed any orgies.
I did go to some orgies with Jack.

Zsa Zsa, in her book, said that he
was an uninhibited sexual swinger.

Ruth really hated it.

She might have thought
that my father was having

more fun than she was!

Mum decided to divorce Dad.

Ruth was ruthless.
Jack was forced out.

Then it became about the money.

Ruth is cooking the books of Mattel.

There's no question that you could
go to prison for what she did.

My dad suddenly lost touch
with reality.

(SIRENS WAIL)There was
a SWAT truck and he said,

"Your father is holding
your sister at gunpoint."

Ruth's shareholders decide, "You're
out!" I mean, what a shocker.

They took him
to a mental hospital...

..but...

nobody ever talked about it.

Since his death, Jack has disappeared
from the Barbie story.

I'm fighting for my father's
legacy, my family's legacy.

To have it stripped away
as if you've never existed.

I want credit where credit is due.

(UP TEMPO THEME MUSIC PLAYS)

(BELLS RING)

Out of this tiny enclave
in Switzerland,

the most extraordinary story began.

It was the mid fifties, and
Ruth Handler, the mother of Barbie,

was on holiday with her family.

We passed a toy store,
and there in the window

was a beautiful display
of an adult figured doll,

about 11 and a half, 12 inches tall.

The doll's name was Lilli.

I thought the dolls were
just gorgeous.

By then, my mind had clicked.

Bild Lilli was certainly
no ordinary doll.

ROB GOLDBERG:
This was not a kid's doll.

It was made for adults,
specifically, for adult men.

And this doll was something
that people in Germany

would buy as a kind of gag.

She looks exactly like Barbie.

Except her... she's much...
well, psychologically harder,

but also, harder plastic.

She has these really,
extremely creepy, permanent high...

I mean, her feet become these...

..really kind of
shocking high heels.

ROB:
When Mattel saw this Lilli doll,

there was resistance immediately.

TOM: A doll with breasts,
for children,

that hadn't ever been done before.

And so, she went
to the vice president

of research and design, Jack Ryan.

I'm Jack Ryan, I'm an inventor,
I'm reassembling

a 15th-century castle here
in Bel Air,

which is a suburb of Los Angeles.

By lowering the ground one storey,
we've been enabled to insert

the medieval stones
which we've brought in from Europe,

sent from France, actually.
Like to hear me play something?

(CHUCKLES) I can barely play,
that's why I invented this.

(ORGAN PLAYS)

JERRY OPPENHEIMER:
Jack grew up in what was then

a very upscale commuter town

of Manhattan called Yonkers.

His father, James Ryan, had come
from poor Irish farming roots,

and he became a very upscale
contractor

for very wealthy people,
including celebrities.

Jack's mother, Lily, had a tea room

in Manhattan, a very posh area.

Jack's mother kept Jack
from making friends.

My grandmother seemed
to have this thing that,

the other kids,
they're not good enough

to come to our house.

And I don't want you
going to somebody else's house...

so when he was growing up,
he was lonely.

I don't know what was driving me,
but I needed to prove myself

from the day I was born.

Ruth's family were also
American immigrants,

but they faced
even greater challenges.

Ruth is the great
American immigrant story.

Her parents were
Polish Jewish immigrants.

Ruth was the tenth and last child
of these people.

They never spoke English.
They spoke Yiddish.

JERRY: At age 10, Ruth was working
in one of the family drugstores.

This was a poor,
essentially uneducated family.

There was a feeling of
"I just need to take care of myself.

My sister, who is raising me,
who is like my mother,

well, she works all the time.

So maybe that's just
what I need to do."

As a child, Jack Ryan was also
an insatiable self starter.

ANN: My father,
he and his brother went

to a very prestigious
private boys' school.

But he had undiagnosed dyslexia.

So, if he couldn't read...

..his brother would read
my father the text

of whatever he was studying.

My father would memorise that.

And my father excelled.

For Ruth, school took
a different course.

MG LORD: Ruth met Elliot Handler,
who became her husband

when they were in high school.

And she says from the first
moment that they touched,

it was electric.
And she just fell in love.

Elliot was wildly creative
and imaginative,

but Ruth was definitely the one
with the keen business

and marketing mind.

Ruth really enjoyed
being in the workforce,

which made her somewhat anomalous,
you know,

among women at that time,
who were mostly stuck in the house.

I had two kids and I was bored
as hell staying home.

HOST: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)

The man who was foreman for
this other business which we had,

he said, "I'd like to make
some of Elliot's old designs."

I says, "I tell you what, you make
'em, I'll sell 'em."

He says, "Neat."
He says, "What shall we make?"
I says, "Picture frames."

We had some slats of wood left over,
and my husband said,

"Hey, that would make
neat doll furniture",

and that's how Mattel started.

From leftovers?
From left-over scraps of wood.

Our first year we did $100,000,
in our second-What year is that?

1945.
'45.

With $100,000, equal
to over a million in today's money,

it was clear that Ruth
had the Midas touch.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

Even though Jack was unable to read,

his ability to memorise
took him straight from school

to the prestigious
Ivy League college, Yale.

ANN: My father was a real genius.

Graduated from Yale, with
an electrical engineering degree.

Then he got the opportunity
to go work

for Raytheon,
in Bedford, Massachusetts.

It was the early 1950s,

and the Cold War was
on everyone's mind.

(BEEPING)

JERRY: Raytheon was the biggest
manufacturer of guided missiles.

And Jack was helping
to develop missiles of war.

He was only 26 at the time.

He had a staff of 700 people,
engineers and scientists,

working under him at the time.

This was a guy
who could not read a book.

Ruth had already proved herself once,

but she was in a hurry
to do it again.

MG LORD: Other toy companies
were advertising,

making small buys
on children's television.

But Mattel risked
its entire net worth,

about a half million dollars,

to advertise
on the Mickey Mouse Club programme.

Half a million dollars,

in those days,
that was a lot of money.

HOST: How much money did you have?

We had a net worth
of half a million dollars.

(JINGLE PLAYS) And Ruth had just
the right toy to make an impact.

MG LORD: The product that
they advertised was a burp gun .

ADVERTISER:
Billie was hunting elephants

with his trusty Mattel toy Burp Gun.

The ad was really disturbing.
(ELEPHANTS TRUMPET)

Little children pretending
to slaughter wildlife

on other continents.

It was just a very, kind of, scary
and realistic cap gun.

But this strategy
of circumventing the parents,

circumventing the toy buyers,

pitching this product directly
to kids...

(LAUGHS) ..it absolutely worked.

ADVERTISER: You can tell
it's Mattel, it's swell.

Betting the net worth
of the company,

spending that amount of money

to advertise
on the Mickey Mouse Club.

If that hadn't worked,
it was over for Mattel.

The company would have gone under.

Ruth loved gambling. She loved it.

I spent a couple of days with her
at different times in Las Vegas.

And I remember one time,

Elliot said,
"Come on, Ruth, we got to go."

And she said, "Go get the car.
I'll be there in a minute."

And in that minute,
she won 25 grand playing roulette,

walked out to the car with 25 grand.

By 1955, Ruth was making millions
selling toys,

while Jack was a successful engineer,

but it was his restless mind
that brought them together.

ANN: My dad designed
a portable crystal radio.

And he went to the New York Toy Fair
to market it,

and that's where he met Ruth
and Elliot Handler.

The next thing you know,

he was packing up the family

to move to Los Angeles.

And my father started inventing

some of Mattel's most popular toys.

REPORTER: In this toy factory,
millions of toys are made.

These men plan, or decide,
what the factory shall make.

(JACK IN THE BOX MUSIC PLAYS)

He would take me to test toys,

and I am an original voice
of Chatty Cathy.

(JINGLE PLAYS) # Oh, Chatty Cathy
Oh, Chatty Cathy

# Of Mattel's famous talking dolls #

I was a little, tiny kid,
you know, and he had me say

over and over again,
"Hi, my name is Chatty Cathy,

I love you.
CHATTY CATHY: I love you.

Two mavericks had now come together.
Ruth, the ultimate businesswoman,

and Jack, the ultimate inventor.

Discovery is seeing
what everybody else is seeing,

but thinking
what no one else has thought.

That's Jack Ryan to a tee.

He was just a cornucopia of ideas.

Ruth was very tough.

She could swear like a sailor.

She certainly chewed me out
enough times.

In a room full of men, she was
only five foot tall, by the way,

she was very short,
she commanded presence.

And she was very smart.

I am lucky, I'm very lucky.

I'm lucky to have
the right instincts.

I was an instinctive marketeer,
a very good one.

JERRY: They hit it off.
Jack respected her.

Ruth respected him.

I mean, it was a was
a match made in heaven at first.

Then Ruth provided the spark
that ignited a revolutionary idea.

RUTH: I had observed
my own daughter, Barbie,

playing with paper dolls,

projecting her vision
of the adult world around her.

And I used to think, "My goodness,
if you could three-dimensionalise

that play pattern,
you'd have something."

So I said, "Let's make a doll
with breasts, and narrow waist,

and narrow ankles. And let's make
her look like a teenager."

But the teenager in that shop
in Switzerland

was a little bit too grown up.

ROB: Bild Lilli was a character
in a newspaper comic strip,

and she was a secretary,

and she was often very sexualised.

And back in Germany, there is
one person who knows Bild Lilli

better than anyone else.

Here, I have a lot Bild Lillis.

I started collecting because
in my childhood,

I always played with Barbie dolls.

And I saw the first Barbie doll,

I remember, I think,
"Oh, I know her. I know her".

My mother often goes in a shop

where you can buy newspaper.

I was three years old,
but I remember.

And here, you can see...

..the people all like
these drawings,

and because the people like
these drawings so much,

they have made a doll.

I'm the owner of the world's
biggest Barbie collection.

I started collecting for 28 years,

and now I have 18,500 dolls.
(LAUGHS)

And I think I have
to get more dolls.

My husband likes the Barbie dolls.

I have a very, very great luck
to have this husband. (LAUGHS)

Ruth had seen the future.

The dolls she wanted Mattel to make,

but her male colleagues disagreed.

RUTH: I was in a sea of men.

They didn't think that a doll with
breasts was exactly appropriate.

ROB: Ruth Handler and Jack Ryan
decided, "If we just make

a few tweaks, we can have a doll
that looks a little different,

maybe looks a little younger,
a little less mature,

maybe we can pull this off."

MG LORD: Ruth Handler put
the Lilli doll in his attache case

and said, "Take this to Japan",
and instructed him

to go have it duplicated.

My father started resculpting
this Bild Lilli doll.

He liked the idea of, you know,

like a wholesome,
all-American pin-up.

(TRAFFIC BLARES, HORN HONKS)

He would go with his father
on jobs to Radio City Music Hall.

And my father,
as soon as they got there,

would hide in the orchestra pit, way
down below the stage, and look up.

And he could see this long line
of women dancing.

And from his perspective, it looked
as if their legs were a mile long.

And then you look at my mother.

My mother's name is Barbie.
I have plenty of pictures

of my mother posing as a pin-up
in the '40s

and him taking the pictures.

So he had an idea of a living doll.

And, you know, at some point
he was going to do that.

(TRAFFIC HUM)

In Japan, prototype dolls
kept coming back with nipples on,

which Jack was forced to file off
with his Swiss Army knife.

Eventually, Jack produced
a working model for Ruth,

who now had to prove there was
a market for this 11-inch doll.

JERRY: In 1959 at the Toy Fair
in New York City,

this Barbie doll, a knock-off
of Bild Lilli, is introduced.

ROB: There's thousands of people
who are coming

from all over the world to buy toys.

TOM: There were
no female buyers in those days,

and the male buyers certainly
did not want to buy Barbie.

They thought it was a stupid idea.

They thought she was,
sort of, a creepy anomaly.

RUTH: Men felt that their wives
would not want it

and that it wouldn't be right
for a child to have that.

And so Ruth Handler goes back
to the marketing.

What she realises is something
she knew several years before

when she was selling the burp guns.
She realises

it's not the adults
that have to like Barbie.

It's the kids
who have to like Barbie.

# Barbie, you're beautiful

# You make me feel

# My Barbie Doll... #

Summer came.
The kids were out of school.

They were watching television.

# Her dancing outfit rings a bell

# At parties
she will cast a spell... #

And it's those commercials that lead

to Barbies flying off the shelves.

TOM: I believe the first place
that accepted Barbie was Macy's.

Almost instantly,
they started selling,

and they sold very, very well.

And then very quickly thereafter,

every store wanted it, and
manufacturing had to be ramped up.

MG LORD: In the first year,
it was said she sold, I think,

300,000 units, which is wild.

Ruth was right.
It was obvious that Ruth was right.

The men at Mattel couldn't dispute
Barbie's sales figures,

but they could still impose
their will in other ways.

ADVERTISER: Barbie, the famous
teenage fashion model doll

by Mattel, felt that this was to be

a special night,
and then it happened.

She met Ken, and somehow she knew...

In 1960, a woman
without a man was a failure.

And Ruth got bushels of letters
from mothers and kids

who wanted a husband doll,
or a boyfriend doll for Barbie.

Ruth was not gung-ho
about this at all,

but they had to make one for her.

Think of the fun you'll have taking
Barbie and Ken on a date.

Ken was an accessory,
a gnat, a fly,

a slave of Barbie, no question.

RUTH: Our designers sculpted one
with no genitalia,

and I looked and I said, "Well,
shouldn't he have some bumps

or something?"
And they didn't want to do that.

HOST: Why did you want a bump?

Well, I thought it was
more realistic.

We did get a little bump
as time went on.

A little bump. (LAUGHS)

Somebody, though, was very upset

about Ken's missing genital.

Both Barbie and Ken had
paraphernalia for a barbecue,

but Ken's, Ken's was accessorised

with a long plastic fork

skewering a pink plastic weenie.

And what seemed even crueller,

he's wearing an apron
that actually said,

mocking the absent genital,
the apron said,

"Come and get it".

And in the world
of Barbie collectors,

Ken is still a bit of a sideshow.

SANDI HOLDER-GRAYSON:
Ken is Barbie's best accessory.

Without Barbie, there is no Ken.

So here's the famous number one.

She's a pristine,
untouched number one.

It was consigned in my auction.

The people who consigned it,
they only paid $500 for it.

And then when I called them that
night and said she went for 27,000,

I think the husband fainted.

The Guinness World Record
is right there.

I not only had the Guinness World
for the highest price paid

for a Barbie doll,
which was over 27,000,

I also hold the record
for the highest price paid

for a Barbie fashion.
That was over 12,000.

Some of these pieces,
like the Roman Holiday up there,

the compact alone
can sell for $1,100.

And those are the things that are
so expensive and so hard to find.

Japanese fashions
are extremely popular.

That's what brings
the highest prices in Barbie.

Anything made in Japan,
they're quite scarce.

So the Japanese market holds
the key

to the most collectible,

vintage Barbie dolls ever made.

ADVERTISER: Here it is!
Barbie's dream home!

The wonderful new house
from Mattel's famous Barbie doll.

It's completely furnished
with Barbie's own dressing table...

Ruth said to me, "What made Barbie
so special", she said,

"Tom, with Barbie, a girl can be
anything she wants to be."

..studio couch, TV, and Hi-Fi...

Barbie, the doll, was only just
a small part of Ruth's big dream.

..and accessories you buy.

MG LORD: Barbie's much bigger
than a mere child's toy.

She's like a symbol
of some kind of...

..eternal feminine principle.

And that's why she generates
both so much devotion and love,

and also, rabid white-hot hatred.

JERRY: The money starts rolling in,
big money.

Overnight, the Handlers
became multimillionaires.

ROBIN: She drove a Cadillac,

she had plenty of money
to go to Gardena.

Gardena was where you gamble,
but no time.

They went on a spree.

They bought penthouses. They bought

the mansions of ex-Hollywood stars.

They bought the best art
from famous painters.

Ruth was living a lifestyle
she never imagined.

Jack's income was coming
from royalties.

He wasn't an employee of Mattel,
but instead had

his own design company within Mattel.

Ruth was reluctant
to pay him a big salary,

so Jack made a deal with her
to receive 1.25%

of every design
he had an involvement in.

That was the deal he made early on
when he joined the company,

and they agreed. They needed
his expertise and his intelligence

and his brains,
and they were willing,

rather than giving him a salary,
giving him a piece of the action.

Overnight, that action turned
into millions of dollars,

and Jack used his wealth
to dive into his Hollywood fantasy.

ANN: I get nostalgic
when I come here.

I get, like, a real ache
in my heart, remembering...

..special times.

That was the home
of President and Mrs Ronald Reagan,

after he stopped being president.

This was my house.

There were these trails
and fruit orchards.

And then there were...
there were grottoes with rooms.

Just up there was the tree house.

The guests would climb up
the spiral staircase

and sit at this table,

and have a beautiful view out
of Los Angeles

from up in the tree
while they were...

..formally dining with my dad.

He had this lifelong need

to surround himself with people.

First, he was able
to get his parents

to sell their home in Yonkers
and move to LA.

And despite the setting,

it was,
I don't want to say normal family,

but typical family.

You know, my parents were together.

My sister and I were there.
My grandparents were there.

We ate meals together. We hung out.

But Jack had dreams
that weren't to be satisfied

with a traditional LA home.

My dad was always fascinated

by the knights in shining armour,
the kings and the queens.

And he thought,
"Why not do that here?"

He was obsessed with becoming
the king of his own Bel Air castle.

ARCHIVAL NARRATOR: Ryan's five-acre
estate is crowded with drawings

of construction to come.

He builds and rebuilds his life
and his estate.

500-year old panels.

They will be fitted in
by his father,

who has been a builder
most of his 80 years.

He did something very unusual
to his home in Bel Air.

He had a moat put around it.

He had the throne
from the movie, Camelot,

over his toilet in the bathroom.

That was what you sat on
when you were in his bathroom.

Ruth and Jack were enjoying
the big money that was rolling in,

but one issue had been ignored,

Bild Lilli.

When Ruth went over there
and discovered this doll,

she just went willy nilly ahead,

and turned it into Barbie.

Well, a German company owned
the patents and the rights

to the Bild Lilli doll.

And they said, "They're making
so much money on Barbie,

we should be getting
a piece of this action."

And they sued.

DIETER WARNECKE:
I interviewed Rolf Hausser,

the maker of the Bild Lilli doll.

I just wanted to find out the truth

behind Barbie and Bild Lilli.

It's not only the same size
and the same body form,

it's everything about it.

Everything is just Bild Lilli,

just with a different visual,

and that's it.

He said in 1957 or '58,

the patent was on the way.
But it took about two years

before he finally got it.

23rd of February, 1960,
that was given that patent.

Meantime, Mattel produced the doll.

He had a lawyer
for the law case

against Mattel, but...

it was a very expensive thing
for him to do,

and it took about two years.

And he lost the case.

Ruth argued there was
no case to answer,

no copyright involved.

She also played fast and loose

by under-representing Barbie sales
to the Germans.

She got out of the legal case
by buying the Bild Lilli copyright,

for the paltry sum of $21,600.

This law case took
all the money he made.

And Rolf Hausser told me that

he was angry and sad
for all his life.

Once again, Ruth had gambled and won.

With the Germans defeated,
Barbie was now ready

to conquer America.

ADVERTISER:
It was a big day for Barbie.

She was up bright and early
to choose

just the right costume to wear.

And after putting her dream house
in order,

she was on her way to work
at Barbie's fashion shop.

Now Barbie has her
very own fashion...

ROB: Barbie embodied the spirit
of the 1960s.

1959, she's a fashion model.

1960, she's moved up.

She is now a fashion designer.

Here comes Barbie on stage now

to model one of her newest gowns.
You'll have great fun putting...

But Barbie's lavish lifestyle
started to draw criticism.

RUTH: Those who did complain
complained of the materialism,

which she seemed to reflect,

the wanting so many clothes

and such glamorous clothes,

and the high lifestyle and all that.

There were those who felt children
shouldn't have those as their goals.

And it wasn't just
Barbie's flashy lifestyle

that was a problem.

CAROL: Children loved her.

But many people looked at her,
that she was...

..sexy. And Ramparts magazine

came out with an article,

The Menace of Barbie Dolls.

Then, a year or so later,
this came out.

"Barbie, go home.
Bring back teddy bears."

But they're all adults...

..putting their thoughts
into the doll.

I think Barbie needs defending

because Barbie is
a wholesome product,

and it's what is in your mind...

..that you are transferring
to the doll.

As Ruth was navigating
the perils for Barbie,

Jack wasn't finding it easy
being king of the castle.

ANN:
Over time, my parents started going

in different directions.

And I think the big problem was

when he started tearing up
the place,

when we had bulldozers

and jackhammers going
every single day,

it was driving my mother crazy.

The other part of it was his
parents,

who lived with us,
were devout Catholics.

And the idea of a divorce
was out of the question.

So we started living separately

under one roof.

He started getting involved
with other women,

and then the party quotient
went way up.

JOURNALIST: You are known
as a great party giver.

What pleasure do you get
out of giving those big parties?

I'm very much interested in people.

I'm quite talented with
mechanical things as an inventor,

but my real interests lie
in the area of people.

So I enjoy meeting
and entertaining people,

and trying to entertain
and amuse them.

ANNIE: The parties that people talk
about all the time,

they were there when I came,
and they were a lot of fun.

Jack was an unusual person.
He was frantic.

He had incredible energy.

And Jack loved women.

There was beautiful girls
everywhere.

I mean, wall to wall.

"Beautiful" and "smart"
were two requirements.

SUSAN: When I was 16, I worked
with the social secretaries.

JOURNALIST: The social secretary
helps at giving parties.

One hundred and fifty parties
this year, with 4,000 guests.

When I would address the envelopes,

I knew many of the names
from Hollywood

that were being invited.

Jack was once described
as an empresario,

and to a degree,
I think that he was.

He had a childlike quality.

He was one of the first adults
that I ever met

that had no problem

enjoying himself like a child.

GUN SUNDBERG:
I was Miss Sweden, February '67.

A friend in common introduced me
to Jack.

I'd been working for a big company
where I did budgets,

and he just said,
"Start on such and such a day,

and I will see how you like it."
(LAUGHS)

JOURNALIST:
The fire engine protects the estate.

The whole staff has fire drills
every Friday.

GUN: That one's me,
on the fire truck.

The fire drills turned out to be
a little different

than other fire drills.

We usually had bikinis
because we would have water fights.

And we drove around the streets
on Beverly Hills. (LAUGHS)

It was funny.

There was a constant stream
of celebrities.

Debbie Reynolds, for example,
was a good pal.

Barbra Streisand.

Natalie Wood, who,
oh, she was just amazing.

I just thought she was the most
beautiful creature I'd ever seen.

Celebrities wanted to know him,
they wanted to be involved with him

because he was doing
the most interesting thing in town.

And this was all just
his natural state,

which was, you know,
to create fun things

that would surprise
and delight people.

JERRY: He was a guy
with great charisma.

He was a guy
with a great sense of humour.

He was brilliant.
I think his mind attracted women

more than his physical appearance,
which was not great.

And I think the word had gotten out

that he was good in bed.

LORETTA BRESLER:
He's not the most handsome man,

but I can see why women
would be very attracted to him.

I feel like I would trust him
with my body.

I would trust him
that he would love me.

Who doesn't love that?

Who doesn't love being loved?
I think that's Jack.

Rumours were constantly swirling
around Jack and his lifestyle.

His reputation definitely lived up
to the spirit of '60s Hollywood.

SUSAN: There were many articles
that were written about him,

but they sort of bordered
on the salacious,

because these parties
were over the top.

Hugh Hefner was
a guest at some of the parties.

It was before he had
the Playboy Mansion.

Maybe he even fashioned it
on the estate.

I've heard the word "orgies."

I never noticed any orgies.

I did go to some orgies with Jack,

at Hugh Hefner's house,
the Playboy Mansion.

Yes, I saw orgies there.

TOM: The rumour is
that part of that magic bed

that he had in the castle, his home,

he could dial up, "I want a redhead.
I want a blonde, I want a brunette,"

and a co-ed matching
that description would appear.

He also had a gaol on his property,

and manacles on the wall.
And rumour is,

he liked to have sometimes the
young ladies manacled to the wall.

It had a bed that came down
from the wall,

no mattress.

I don't think Jack built it
as part of the castle.

I think it was maybe there
from before.

I don't think it was
ever functional. (CHUCKLES)

For two people, though,

Jack's legendary parties were
getting out of hand.

JERRY: Ruth was a very conservative,

Jewish businesswoman.

And could never partake
in the kind of libertine lifestyle

that Jack was living.

She really hated it.

I think that maybe,
she might've thought...

that my father was having
more fun than she was.

But Ruth had more pressing problems

than Jack's version
of "living the dream."

She could see the '60s were moving
the cultural dial.

In the face of growing criticism,

Ruth had a novel idea
to get Barbie right back on trend.

CAROL: Twiggy was part
of this British fashion revolt,

you might say,

that started with Mary Quant.

I remember Twiggy came to Mattel.

And we were all told
not to talk to her

when she came in. (LAUGHS)

Not to hound her.

MG LORD: Barbie couldn't really wear
the Carnaby Street clothes.

Instead, she got a bunch of friends

who had, you know,
a more boyish figure.

Barbie's influence on women's ideals
of the perfect body

is still a hot topic.

Look how gorgeous. This is
our Barbie and Ken fantasy.

I always loved the Barbie look.

And look who is the Human Barbie?

Hellooooo!

That's my Ken doll.
His name's Steven.

Fifteen years that we are together.

When the Barbie trend
was not even a trend,

we created something.

I had this surgery, my boobies,
that I did in 2022.

We did on him... he didn't have

projection when you look
to the side.

And he agreed, the plastic surgeon,

so he put, like, a little bit
of a chin implant.

And what else did you do?
Just the hair.

Oh, did a hair transplant, twice.

Can't catch me!
(CAR ENGINE ROARS)

Hello, Marcella! How are you?

This is what I have
inside of me, right?
This is what you have inside of you.

Gorgeous. Gorgeous.
Yeah, I am so super happy,

super confident.
I lost weight, you know?

You can see.
I can see.

My butt has a little bit, like...

it's not, like,
very full like before.

Can you insert in your hips here,

so it can look more,
like, hourglass?

Like, for classic beauty,
like the Barbie.That's...

we could do half an inch.
Half an inch.

Do you think I'm ready
for a facelift, or not?

Definitely not.
Stop!

OK.Definitely not.
That's good, that's good.

To me, it wasn't just the looks.
It is the whole thing.

The fantasy, the house,
the husband, the lifestyle.

Because it looks so perfect.

For me, it was possible.

(JAZZY MUSIC PLAYS)ADVERTISER:
Have you heard what's happened?

Barbie's changed! Barbie's new...

Just as Ruth came up with
the Twiggy doll to lift Barbie sales,

Jack came up with an invention
that shaped Barbie forever.

The new Barbie twists!

The new Barbie turns!

With this twist-and-turn waist,

she was able to move in ways

that no other doll had before.

Wouldn't you like the new Barbie?

And therefore, had more ways
that you could play with her.

So, a lot of Barbie's popularity

had to do with the innovative ways

that my father created,
in order to play with her.

And that was a big deal.

A big deal that Jack wanted
the world to know about.

"Our guest on Mark My Words is

a truly remarkable inventor,
Jack Ryan.

He's the man who invented
the Barbie doll."

JACK: "Thank you."
"How do you...

how do you sit down
at a drawing board

and produce something like
the Barbie doll,

which becomes
a national phenomenon?"

"Well, I think you said it when
you said 'a national phenomenon,'

because the important thing is
not just inventing,

but inventing something
which will 'Happen,'

which a capital 'H'".

Jack's determination
to place himself

at the centre
of the Barbie story caused

the first major fracture with Ruth.

In Jack's mind, he invented Barbie.
And he did invent Barbie.

And she was a big part of the story.

TOM: People say he designed Barbie.
He didn't design Barbie.

Ruth really created Barbie,
but he designed

the leg armature
that was underneath the vinyl

that allowed the bendable knee.

He designed the armature to allow
the twist-and-turn waist on Barbie.

ANNIE: No matter where,
when you when you read about Jack,

he was known
as the Barbie inventor.

There was never any doubt
or question, for decades.

And not just a year, decades.

JERRY: People knew this guy.

They thought
he was an eccentric, crazy guy.

But the word had gotten out.
Even in the UK,

he was being written about.

So he became kind of a celebrity,
and of course,

that pissed off Ruth Handler.

Ruth had much
to be pleased about, too.

By the end of the 1960s,
Mattel's toy sales had reached

almost $200 million,
propelling it to be

one of the largest toy companies
in the world.

Ruth was a trailblazer
in more than the product sense.

She was a trailblazer
in the sense, also,

of managing a...

what I would call
a "modern" toy company.

I think Mattel was
the first really modern toy company.

But then,
just as the new decade unfolded,

Ruth was confronted with
some profoundly distressing news.

DEREK GABLE: We suddenly get
a message, in the company,

that Ruth has been diagnosed...

basically, let's not even
call it breast cancer.

Let's call it a death sentence.

Back then,
it was basically a death sentence.

ROBIN: 1970 is
when she had her mastectomy.

They removed her breast.

It was hugely devastating.

She was used to having a very sexy,

adorable body,
and particularly in the '70s,

women were ashamed
about having breast cancer.

There was a sense that you were...

you had done something wrong
if you got breast cancer.

Having a mastectomy, Jane,
at that time,

was the most traumatic experience
one could imagine.

I had been on top of the world,
I was on a power trip.

I could do no wrong, and suddenly,

here I was, de-womanised,

and angry. I had such hostility.

It was a terrible time.

Obviously, horrible for her, but
it was also terrible for the company

because, frankly,
we all thought she was going to die.

And she goes back to work,
and she's feeling cut out from...

from her staff,
and they're kind of ignoring her.

They're having problems
in the company.

There was a fire in a Mexican plant.

There was a problem
with their television ads.

The Federal Trade Commission was
starting to come down on

these toy companies
and their ads to children.

And the booming feminist movement
was gaining momentum,

and posing a new challenge
for Barbie's future.

All of us must stand up together,
and say, "No more."

It was a time
that was full of ferment...

around making change.

Feminism was about, that women
should be valued for who we are,

and that all opportunities
should be open to us.

And there was a focus on Barbie.

Blonde, long-legged,
impossibly configured.

And so, this doll is saying,

"This is all that women are worth."

MG LORD: Feminists hated Barbie.

They didn't see the house
or the career,

they just saw
that highly sexualised,

middle-1950s body
of a German sex worker.

It was easy to say, "This doll,
by giving it to little girls,

they're going to think
that this is all they can be."

I just don't think
the doll is responsible for that.

I think sexism and the patriarchy

and a misogynist culture is
responsible for that.

Barbie has
a really fabulous bathrobe.

But she's also got
these horrific things

in her slumber party set.

That little thing is
a bathroom scale,

permanently set at 110.

The little book says,
"How to Lose Weight on One Side."

And then you turn it over,
and it says, "Don't Eat."

That's depressing. (CHUCKLES)
That is really depressing.

With feminist mums
no longer buying Barbies,

sales were dropping,
leaving Ruth facing

the consequences
of reduced turnover.

This all resulted
in a bottom-line problem.

Of course, if you report
your bottom line as lower,

your stock is going to lose value.

So Ruth took another gamble,
this time with Mattel's finances.

JERRY: Mattel was
a public company at this point.

And Ruth figures, "We have
to make the shareholders happy.

We have to make Wall Street happy."

Well, this is dangerous stuff.

She couldn't afford
for her stock to lose value,

and so, to artificially
make it appear...

..that the company was not
losing value...

..she used a scheme called
"Bill and Hold."

TOM: She ended up agreeing that
when products left our warehouse,

they started counting it as a sale,

and that was not legal.

It hadn't been received
by the retailer yet.

And that was illegal
because it inflated

the sales higher
than they really were.

It is a scheme that many companies
at that time used.

And usually,
they caught up in the next quarter.

And so, no one ever knew.
It wasn't an issue.

But in this case,
the problems kept happening,

quarter after quarter. And then,
they were really hiding it.

As Ruth resorted
to financial manipulation

to keep Mattel looking strong,

Jack had his hands full
with profound family issues.

ANN: 1971, in the spring,
my grandfather died.

His death was
a big blow for my father

because I think my grandfather was

a real grounding influence for him.

ANNIE: He loved his father.

One day, he had a heart attack,
and we called the 911 number.

They came in a matter of seconds.

But they couldn't save him.
He was already gone

when Jack got there,
and he was devastated.

He was a fun guy,

a steady guy, a clever guy,

that my father just loved.

And once he was gone,
they finally got divorced,

and my mother and sister and I moved

to another house on the other side
of Bel Air.

He was still giving parties,

but there was something missing.

Some kind of love,
I think it might have been,

that made him sad.

JERRY: He was a troubled guy, going
through all kinds of bad reactions,

his womanising, his drug use,
his drinking,

not realising what was causing it.

It wasn't that he was
just a crazy guy.

He was suffering
from a true psychiatric problem,

which was bipolar,

and it took him a while
to learn what it was.

Ruth, too, was struggling
with her place in her own company.

ROBIN: In the '70s,
after she's had a mastectomy,

she talks about being intimidated
by Seymour Rosenberg,

who she had brought
into the company.

The chief financial officer decided

that the toy industry was too risky,

and that's when he convinced
the board of directors

to buy Ringling Brothers,
Barnum & Bailey Circus.

That's not risky?

To buy a tubular steel company,
to buy the pet supply company,

to buy an audio magnetics company.

And of course, all those things
ended up going to hell.

These decisions, that were mistakes,

damn near drove the company
into bankruptcy.

Jack's royalties deal had
always attracted some jealousy.

Now he found himself
in the crosshairs

of ruthless cost-cutting measures.

If you can't increase earnings
to come to a better bottom line,

you can decrease expenses.

My dad had worked there
for 20 years,

and Mattel started not paying him
his royalties.

It was heart-breaking,

because he really felt
that he was...

..a big part of the Mattel family,
because he was.

Jack felt that Ruth was forcing him
into a corner, and he had to fight.

So he took out a lawsuit
against Mattel,

suing them
for $24 million in royalties.

ADVERTISER: They're the fastest
metal cars you've seen.

Here was this guy, who was inventing

million-dollar toys beyond Barbie.

Get 'em in wild new action sets.

Hot Wheels became
the second biggest toy product

that Mattel was producing.

DEREK: That was the beginning
of a multi-billion dollar business.

Something like $7 million
of Hot Wheels in the first year.

Second year, $100 million of them.

Fastest metal cars you've ever seen.

It was purely money,
and it was purely ego.

They were tired of paying this
huge amount of royalties to him.

Ruth's thinking,
"This is my company,

this is Elliot's and my company,"

you know, "and we're paying
this guy all this money,

and he gets a lot of attention,"

because he just happens to be
a very interesting person

that does a lot of cool things.

And I think she didn't
really like that very much.

For the first time, Jack was in
a precarious position at Mattel.

But he wasn't alone.
Barbie was under threat, too.

I was working on pre-school toys,
and Ruth came into my cubicle

and she said, "Tom, the retailers
say it's over for Barbie.

Sales declined last year
from 100 million to 42 million.

The Wall Street analysts say
it's over for her.

Toys never come back
once they decline.

My own sales force says
we should forget Barbie

and go on to something else.
What do you think?"

I said, "That's the stupidest thing
I've ever heard."

That's how she talked, by the way.
She talked very fast...

(LAUGHS) ..and loud.

And I said, "We're going
to make everything one brand.

So it's all going
to be Barbie, pink, Pantone 219,

and that established
the wall of pink at retail.

The power of pink remains
just as powerful as it used to.

Hi guys, I'm Azusa Barbie,

welcome to my real Barbie world.

I do a lot of Barbie DIY.

Don't ask Ken.
We can do it, Barbie dolls.

(GIGGLES)

I moved to the US
from Japan 11 years ago.

And I wanted to be closer to Barbie.

So here's my mini me.
She used to have blonde hair,

but I re-rooted her hair.

One hundred thousand on Instagram,

and 160,000 on YouTube.

I really feel strong empathy
with her,

like, I totally feel
girl power, empowerment.

Not just about how she looks...

..more about the inside,
personality.

She's so independent,
she has so many careers,

she has a boyfriend but she doesn't
depend on him, and I'm the same way.

I could totally live without Barbie,

but Barbie totally makes my life

like, a trillion times more exciting
and, like, happier.

Ruth still was trying
to save Mattel.

Unfortunately for Jack,

the money-saving focus was
back on him.

Mattel brought in a second
design group without Jack knowing.

Because they thought,
"Well, a the second design group,

we don't have to be paying
royalties to Jack Ryan.

We can have other people come in
and do the same thing."

It was a way of showing him,
"We don't need you."

Ruth was ruthless.

It all goes back to her upbringing.

She had this tough,
ball-busting manner about her,

a tough woman,
a tough businesswoman, street-smart.

Ruth playing hardball
wasn't going to allow her to bypass

the financial storm
she had created.

And in 1975, it landed.

The Securities and
Exchange Commission got involved.

And that is
the federal government entity

that monitors public companies.

And in her case, they found

that there was violations

of SEC statutes.

They knew that they were
not reporting what was real.

The forecast was a little too sunny
for what actually was going on.

And so, shareholders were
pretty upset about that.

They were in New York on a trip
when they got a call saying,

"We have a problem here."

And that's what brought
shareholder lawsuits.

These shareholder lawsuits
were eventually settled

for $34 million,

but there was a price to pay
for Ruth.

Her shareholders decide
she has to leave the company.

I mean, here she is, the co-founder.

She and Elliot Handler are
now told,

"You're out."
I mean, what a shocker.

RUTH: Those were horrendous years.

I found that
my leadership skills had wavered,

and it just was a very awful time
in my life,

and I was about as low as
one can get when I left the company.

For her,
it was absolutely devastating.

She was going to Gardena,
gambling every day.

She had no... Just no...

idea what to do with herself.

She's just lost.

She definitely contemplated suicide.

DEREK: Ruth and Elliot were leaving,
feeling disgraced.

But nobody felt it like that...
everybody was heartbroken.

TOM: There were those of us
who were very sorry

that she left and that Elliot left.

We felt like they were...
they WERE the founders

and the creators of the company,

and could it continue
the way it had been without them?

REPORTER: Zsa Zsa arrives
at the theatre to the loud cheers

of waving fans and flashing lights
of the press photographers.

Ruth's dreams seemed
to be shattered.

Jack, fighting his legal battle,

looked for solace
in a familiar refuge,

this time with glamorous
Hollywood actor, Zsa Zsa Gabor.

The way he met her was
really something.

She lived up the road from him
in Bel Air, not too far away,

and she had two stone lions
out in front of her house.

Rumour is, she went on vacation.

He had his guys cut the head
off of each lion,

and put a voice mechanism
in each lion.

So Zsa Zsa comes home...
and by the way, motion activated.

Zsa Zsa comes home,
lion on the left says,

"Hi, Zsa Zsa, welcome home."

Lion on the right says,

"Gee, I bet you're wondering
how come we can talk now?"

Lion on the left, "Well, it's
a really neat guy named Jack Ryan,

who lives down the road, did this
so we could say hello to you.

Don't you like to meet him?"

That's how he met Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Of course, they later got married.

ANNOUNCER: OK, here we go,
the show is Tattletales.

Take one, and we go.

(APPLAUSE)
Zsa Zsa, what is Jack gonna say?

What's more important to him,
knowledge or his imagination?

Don't forget, in Jack's case,
he's an inventor.

That's right.
So he's fantastic

and knowledgeable, went to
the best schools in the world,

but I do know,
and I think he'll say

that imagination is
more important for him.

(APPLAUSE)Yes. Don't say
anything now. Here he comes. Jack.

What is more important to you,
this is for the game, by the way,

your imagination or your knowledge?

I'd say my imagination.

That's it! You got it.
(CHEERING)

ANN: They both appreciated

each other's humour.

Their view of the world,

their love of celebrity.

I know she loved
that he was a real genius,

and he saw her as a genius, too.

I have everything here.

And where can you think better
than a wonderful hot bath, anyhow?

While it seemed
like a match made in heaven,

reality for the newlyweds
wasn't pure harmony.

ANNIE: She was older, compared
to the other women he knew.

And certainly, we all felt
that she was very possessive.

Zsa Zsa Gabor was after my case,

cos she thought that Jack was
romantically involved with me.

She had me followed,
and taped my phone, and all of that.

JERRY: Zsa Zsa, in her book,
said that he was just...

an uninhibited sexual swinger,

and it wasn't anything
she could deal with,

even though she was in love with him
and thought he was a brilliant guy.

ANNIE: And also, she had
a lifestyle, and he had his,

and we knew he wasn't going
to adapt to hers,

and she wasn't going
to adapt to his.

So there was like, you know,
"Where are we going?"

That was the question.

And the answer to that question was
a quick divorce a year later.

But it didn't take Jack long
to fill the gap again.

ANN: here are a couple of pictures
with my dad, with Linda Henson.

She was very young,
like, in her teenage years

when she started working for him.

Linda was a sweet person,

a very moral person.

She was a Mormon.

She was wife number three.

Here's wife number...

..four. Isn't it silly
that you can't keep track

of your stepmothers?

Anyway, this is Gari Hardy Lansing.

And she was very sweet.

She was a hat designer.

I don't remember
much more than that.

But Jack's lavish lifestyle
was difficult to run alongside

continuing to sue Mattel
for his royalties.

He was now forced
to sell his beloved castle.

For him, it was the ultimate canvas

for him to paint his grand vision.

He loved this place so much.

It was the biggest and best toy

a boy could ever have.

So when he had to sell it

in order to continue his lawsuit
against Mattel,

I think it took a big part
of him away.

He was so terribly unhappy,
and felt kind of hopeless.

And the pressure
of the Mattel lawsuit,

starting to run out of money,

drinking and using drugs
to self-medicate,

that all became a toxic combination

that just blew his mind.

And suddenly, he lost touch
with reality.

SUSAN:
You could feel the mania of it,

spinning a little bit out
of control.

At the same time,
those of us that knew him well...

..kind of just knew him

as this person of extremes,

and accepted it.

That was Jack.

And I would say we really loved him.

I was 23 years old, and...

..the phone rang early one morning.

"Ann, you have to come up
to the estate right now.

Something terrible is going on."

And when I got to the entrance,

there was a SWAT truck
and police cars everywhere.

I said, "What's going on?"

He said, "Your father is holding
your sister, Diana, at gunpoint."

And at the top of the stairs
was my father and my sister,

and he was holding a gun
to her head.

My father just looks like
somebody I didn't know.

And my sister just kind of...

..looked at me, and...

then I head SWAT guy says,
"Well, talk to your father,

tell him to let Diana go,
that everything's OK."

And the last thing I remember was
just saying...

"..Dad. It's OK. Let...

Let Diana go."

And then, they were able
to separate him.

And they...

..took him to a mental hospital.

But... nobody ever talked about it.

It was so horrific.

Nobody in my family,

including my sister and me,
ever talked about it.

It wasn't necessarily expected,
you weren't prepared,

there wasn't a guidebook for it.

There wasn't a YouTube video about

how to deal with Dad
when he's like this, you know.

The way alcoholism,

and drug abuse, and mental illness
were handled back then,

there was a level of shame to it.

Ruth was also facing
a real moment of public shame.

Her financial mismanagement
had now attracted

the attention of the US government.

ROBIN: The Securities and
Exchange Commission got involved.

These are federal.
Nobody wants to hear

that they have a charge against them

by the Securities
and Exchange Commission.

That is scary stuff.
There's no question

that you could go to prison
for what she did.

And she was writing long,
long notes to her lawyers,

explaining what happened
over and over again,

and blaming the men for it.
But they were telling her...

..you know, it's a lot of evidence,
a lot of...

..physical evidence, right?
Paper evidence...

..about what happened. It's
a company. Everything's reported.

After 10 months
of protesting her innocence,

on arrival at the federal court,
Ruth dramatically pleaded

no contest.

Ruth claimed that
by pleading no contest,

she didn't really admit guilt,

but she was nevertheless
a convicted felon.

December 1978,

and Ruth is sentenced
by the federal grand jury.

Ruth was found guilty
on charges of conspiracy,

mail fraud, and making
false financial statements

to the Securities
and Exchange commission.

RUTH: I never did anything illegal.

There were illegal acts
performed in the organisation.

My error was not ferreting them out

and firing the people immediately.

She walked out from that hearing
and said, "I was not guilty.

It was the man,
it was Seymour Rosenberg."

People said that no one could read

those financial reports like Ruth.

And that she could very quickly see
a dime's worth of difference.

And evidently, she used to pull out
her red lipstick sometimes

and circle any errors
that she found.

So the idea

that she didn't know
what was going on is...

is pretty incredible.

A lot of people wanted her
behind bars,

and she basically walked away

with a short probation period
and a fine.

She lucked out
in that she had a judge

who was known
to be a compassionate person.

She could have had
a different judge.

Even so, the judge required her

to do 500 hours a year
of community service for five years,

the longest community service order
ever handed down to that point.

After six long years, Jack had
had enough of fighting his case.

He settled the lawsuit
against Mattel for his royalties,

and received $10.1 million,

less than half the amount
he originally sued for.

It wasn't easy
when my father sued Mattel

to get what he was due,
but eventually, he won.

It was clear, though,
that the years of struggle

and emotional pain had taken
their toll on Jack.

DEREK: As time went by,
he became more and more fragile.

He was, physically,
not as good as he used to be.

He was, you know,
obviously not well.

And mentally, he wasn't the vibrant,
the confident,

the, you know,
"I'm running the show."

And it was kind of sad
to see him like that.

His health deteriorated.

Jack had a heart attack,
serious heart attack.

He almost died.
He had quintuple heart surgery.

As Jack battled his health issues...

Joining us right now, Mary, is
a powerhouse of a businesswoman...

..Ruth found a new outlet
for her marketing skills.

After retiring as president
of Mattel in 1974,

she founded a company
that revolutionised

the design of artificial breasts
for women who have mastectomies.

(APPLAUSE)
Would you welcome Ruth Handler.

RUTH: This is the original Barbie.

You know, in those days,
they didn't make dolls with breasts.

You know, it's ironic, Merv,
dress to breasts,

that's where I am in life.
(LAUGHTER)

This is what you're making now?
Yeah.This is called Nearly Me.

This is the love of my life.

Do they come in different... that's
awfully big.Yeah, this happens

to be my size.Oh.
(LAUGHTER)

(HE CHUCKLES)

You're wearing one?
Oh, you better believe it.

I show it all over the country
and I'd love to show it to you.

(LAUGHTER)

She would always embarrass
the hell out of me

when we were on stage,
when I was introducing her.

She'd say, "Tom, come up here."

I'd say, "Yes, Ruth."
She'd take my hand,

and she'd put it on each
of her breasts. And she'd say,

"Tell the audience which one's real
and which one's fake."

Ruth always seemed to find a way

to live up to the motto
she gave Barbie,

"Be what you want to be."

Hello, welcome to my home.

My very own '80s deco
Barbie Dream House.

Today's fans do the same.

I'm a make-up artist,
so I love beauty,

and history of beauty,
and references.

I transitioned when I was, like, 15.

So I was a trans teen.

And my parents were always very
supportive about my gender identity,

and my first Barbie
I got, in Christmas

of 1985 was Day-to-Night Barbie.

I would play with these things
at home, but, you know,

in school, you know, kids,
especially in the '80s...

..kids are always notoriously awful,
right? But especially then.

So I was kind of like Barbie was
a dirty, dark secret.

It was a sense of shame
about Barbie.

But, you know,
I'm a rather defiant child,

so I still did it,
and still loved pink,

and played with Barbies and dolls.

I think she just lives
authentically,

and lives in her own world,
which I definitely do.

And I just glean
a lot of inspiration from that.

I have a very glamorous life,
I've led a very charmed life,

and Barbie is definitely
an influence for that.

Ruth found purpose
with her "Nearly Me" invention

that made her another fortune,

but Jack's life was
now spinning out of control,

extracting a price both physically
and mentally.

ANN: He was depressed,
he was drinking more.

It felt like
a hopeless situation to him.

Just, you know, being cast aside

like he wasn't important.

And as much as he tried to...

..you know, keep going,
and having a positive attitude

about everything,
and invent new stuff,

and do exciting things,

it just became
increasingly difficult.

It was hard to see him going down,

cos he was dangerous to himself.

Amidst the chaos,
a glimmer of hope emerged

for Jack's mental health,
in a new-found friendship

with someone who knew about the
highs and lows of manic depression.

KAY REDFIELD JAMISON: I first met
Jack through the chancellor at UCLA.

I got to know him gradually
over time,

we started having
breakfast together.

And I regarded him
as a very good friend.

Every now and then, he'd bring up
the possibility of marriage.

And I'd always say, you know,
"Don't be ridiculous.

It would be catastrophic
in the nth degree."

And then he'd laugh,
and we'd move on.

I didn't take it hugely seriously.

We talked a lot about
our common problem

with mania and depression.

It's a serious illness.

You can't have this illness
without being scared.

One day, we drove down
to the Beverly Hills Hotel,

and he was
a frequent visitor there.

We were walking
through the front entrance,

and were in the lobby.

And he trips and falls.

And a gun that he has
on his inside breast pocket,

once he's hit the ground,
goes sliding across the carpet.

And three bellmen
immediately appear,

two lift him up to his feet.

And the third comes over
with the gun and says,

"Your gun, Mr Ryan."

As if he had dropped his wallet.

And I'm just mortified, you know?

Why the hell did he bring a gun
to the Polo Lounge?

It was terrible.
It was absolutely terrible for me.

Bipolar is a progressive disease,

so the disease gets worse over time
if it's left untreated.

Bipolar also carries
the highest risk

of suicide, of any illness.

And Kay herself had
direct experience of this.

You attempted suicide.Right.
And have written about it.Right.

Suicide is often a very violent act.
I mean, it's awful.

People really, really want to die.

It's a level of despair.
It's a level of wanting out.

And the level of pain is
very difficult to describe.

Just can't do it, not one more hour.
Right.

Kay was increasingly fearful
for Jack.

In her book, she shared
a memorable conversation

she had with him.

"I found myself edgily knocking
the ice cubes around

in my whisky glass.

The conversation was making me
restless and uneasy.

We were talking about suicide,
and making a blood oath.

If either of us again became
deeply suicidal, we agreed,

we would meet at Jack's home
on Cape Cod.

Once there, the non-suicidal one
of us would have a week

to persuade the other
not to commit suicide.

If it didn't work,
at least we would have tried.

We sealed our foray into the planned
and rational world.

Still, I had my doubts."

To the delight of his friends
and family,

Jack found love again,
with his fifth wife, Magda.

Maggie is a lovely person.

ANNIE: She helped Jack
at a moment in time

where he was not famous,

not wealthy, not in good shape.

She was beautiful,
as anyone close to Jack would be.

And I believe she was an attorney
in Poland, so she wasn't stupid.

But their happy time together
didn't last long.

JERRY: They were in their fifth year
of their marriage,

they were living
in a small apartment.

And out of the blue,

Jack suddenly has this stroke,
and it's devastating.

His whole right side was paralysed.

He could not feed himself,

because he would choke on the food,
because he could not swallow.

ANN: His speech was slurred.

And for someone who had been
as verbal as him,

it was... it was awful.

And here he has this new bride,

who suddenly has gone from his wife
to being his nursemaid.

I think it was...

..embarrassing. Humiliating.

ANNIE: It was hard to watch him.

He was hurting. He was...

..he was not what he used to be,
and he was fully aware of that.

I got a call.

It was right before dinner.
And Roger said,

"I'm... I'm sorry to tell you
your dad has died."

Roger said he shot himself.

I felt as if I couldn't breathe,

like I was sort of being
held down under the water.

One day, his wife Magda had
to go out and run some errands.

He was left in the bedroom,
watching television.

Ironically, and I heard this
from several sources,

the last thing he watched on TV,

was an interview with Ruth Handler.

Magda came home,

went into the bedroom
where he normally stayed,

and he wasn't there.
So she went through the apartment,

couldn't find him,
called out his name, no answer.

Went back to the bedroom,

looked further and found him
on the side of the bed.

Beside him was a note,
written with her lipstick,

Magda's lipstick, saying,
"I love you."

ANNIE: We were devastated.

I mean,
the word doesn't even cover it.

I haven't recovered.

GUN: He really was kind,

and always thought of others around.

And that's unusual.

Not everybody can be that way,
but he could.

And he was.

That was a difficult day.

But even at his death,
Jack was being remembered

as the inventor of Barbie.

When Ruth published her book,
Dream Doll, she told the world

what she felt about that.

After my father died in 1991,

Ruth Handler thought, "Well, you
know, I'm going to reinvent myself",

so she thought,
"Well, you know, I'm going to claim

that I created Barbie,
not give Jack Ryan any credit,

and, you know, put a positive light
on myself."

I mean, I don't know
how to describe it any other way.

Ruth found herself in a position
to correct what she thought

was another wrong in her life,

being sacked
from the company she founded.

Somebody at Mattel wanted
to give Ruth her wings back,

new CEO, Jill Barad.

TOM:
When I left, Jill became that role,

and Jill did a wonderful thing.

She started inviting Ruth
back to company events,

and Ruth really appreciated that.

ROBIN: If you look at
how she's smiling in the pictures,

I think it meant a lot.

She was brought back into Mattel.

She was honoured.

There were some people on the board
that didn't want

to have anything to do
with the Handlers anymore,

after the financial issues.

And Jill overcame them.

Jill Barad, who very, very much
is a feminist,

and recognised that she, you know,

was standing on the shoulders
of Ruth Handler,

had this idea. "Oh.

It's been decades
that Barbie's been out there.

There's not only all these children
who play with the doll,

there's now collectors,
there are now adult women

who love this doll.

What if I invite her back to
the company, be a brand ambassador?"

Ruth, you are my hero.

And on Barbie's 40th anniversary,

when Mattel holds a huge,
big party in New York.

Ruth is sitting at the head table.

RUTH: I never visualised
that being Barbie's mom

could be such
an earth-shattering feeling.

Ruth's return to Mattel was
then finally celebrated

in a large bronze relief in
the lobby of Mattel's headquarters,

with Ruth holding a Barbie doll.

Ruths reputation was
further enhanced

by the extraordinary success
of Barbie: The Movie.

(APPLAUSE)
MARGOT ROBBIE: Thank you.

Thank you, we would like
to dedicate this

to every single person
on the planet

who dressed up, and went
to the greatest place on Earth,

the movie theatres.

This is a movie about Barbie,
but it's also a movie about humans.

We made it... it's about you.

(CHEERING)

ROBIN:
I'm thrilled that Greta Gerwig

and Mattel chose
to put Ruth in the movie.

I'm thrilled that she is now known
all over the world,

as Barbie's mom,
but she is so much more than that.

She built, from nothing,

the biggest toy company
in the world.

A brand, in Barbie,
that is a global icon.

Ruth Handler was one
of the great corporate leaders

of the 20th century, in America.

To me, that's her legacy.

However, for Jack's family
and friends,

the movie and its attention
would've been an ideal moment

to celebrate Dad.

On the one hand,
you have the guy that's responsible

for Mattel's success,

whom they tried to cut out.

He sued them and he prevailed.

And then you have Ruth,
on the other hand,

who left Mattel in shame.

And then, after my father's dead,
comes back,

rewrites the story,

and is rising
like a phoenix from the ashes.

Ruth did such a good job of,
you know,

removing my father that,

when they look
at the source material,

they're reading the Ruth stuff,
the Ruth narrative.

SUSAN:
He was a really interesting man

who made an impact
on so many people's lives

with his inventions,
and he deserves to be celebrated.

That's the truth.

I want the real story to come out.

And I want credit
where credit is due.

And that's what my father deserves.

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