Who is Ruth Handler? The creator of the Barbie doll dedicated her life to empowering women

• "Barbie," in theaters now, features a cameo from Rhea Perlman as Ruth Handler.
• Ruth Handler created the first Barbie doll, which went on the market in 1959.

In Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" movie, the world's most iconic doll begins malfunctioning, developing dreaded symptoms like flat feet and cellulite. So she goes to the real world, where she meets some humans who help teach her what it means to be alive instead of plastic.

One of the people she meets on her journey is Barbie creator Ruth Handler, played by "Cheers" star Rhea Perlman. Here's everything we know about Handler, the real-life woman responsible for starting the Barbie revolution.

Handler was born to Russian-Jewish immigrants

Handler was born Ruth Musko on November 4, 1916, in Denver, Colorado — she was one of ten children, according to the Los Angeles Times.

She married her high school boyfriend Elliot Handler in 1938. Per the LA Times, Elliot followed Handler to Hollywood after she went on vacation there when she was 19 and never returned to Colorado.

Before the Handlers began inventing toys, they were in the giftware business

Per the LA Times, Handler was a secretary at Paramount Studios before she persuaded Elliot to turn his hobby of creating housewares into a business. Soon, the couple began making giftware like clocks, bowls, and mirrors made of plastic together in their garage.

In 1942, they went into business with an industrial designer named Harold Mattson and combined Harold and Elliot's names to create the company we know today as "Mattel."

Mattel was a picture-frame manufacturing company that was also making dollhouse furniture with leftover scraps of wood before it became a full-time toy manufacturing company.

Handler was inspired to create Barbie by her daughter, Barbara

Mattel began having success with dolls like Chatty Cathy in late 1958 when Handler was inspired to create a new doll for little girls after watching her daughter Barbara play with teenage paper dolls. It occurred to her that the only plastic dolls on the market for women were baby dolls, and she wanted to create a toy that would inspire kids to "dream dreams of the future."

To make the doll appear lifelike, Handler knew she would have to have breasts. She saw a similar doll during a vacation in Germany and was inspired.

The first Barbie doll — called "Barbie Teen-Age Fashion Model" debuted at the 1959 American Toy Fair in New York City. She wore a black-and-white striped bathing suit and black open-toed high heels. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, she wore makeup on her face, and she cost $3.

Mattel sold 350,00 Barbies the first year she was on the market. "The minute that doll hit the counter, she walked right off," Handler said, per the LA Times.

The Evolution of Barbie

By the early 1960s, Mattel was reportedly worth $100 million, thanks in large part to Barbie — so the company introduced family and friends for her. Ken hit shelves in 1961 and was named after Handler's son, Ken Handler. Midge and Skipper were introduced in 1963 and 1965, respectively.

Christie was an African American doll introduced in 1969. She's considered Barbie's first "ethnic friend," per the LA Times. The first Black Barbie doll — meaning, the first doll to be considered a "Barbie" herself rather than a friend — wasn't introduced until 1981.

As the feminist movement took hold, Barbie's career soon evolved from being simply a model to being a teacher, an astronaut, a doctor, a vet, and everything in between.

But for all their relatively progressive pedrigree, the dolls have perennially been criticised as regressive, too. The National Organization for Women argued that Barbie modeled an unattainable body type for young women, a conversation that persists until today.

Breast cancer and tax troubles

Handler was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1970, per People, and underwent a modified radical mastectomy surgery.

After she recovered, she and Elliot were forced out of Mattel in 1975, per the LA Times.

"I'd been opinionated and outspoken. I had strong leadership skills. I had been running a company making hundreds of millions of dollars a year. We had 15,000 employees. I had a big job. But suddenly I was supposed to whisper about what I'd been through," the newspaper reported her saying.

In 1978, Handler was indicted on charges of false reporting to the Securities and Exchange Commission and fraud. She pleaded no contest and was fined $57,000 and sentenced to 2,500 hours of community service, per the LA Times.

This is why Perlman's Handler makes numerous references to the IRS, a double mastectomy, and tax evasion in "Barbie."

The Nearly Me prosthetic

Before her legal troubles began, Handler founded the Ruthton Corporation, with the goal of helping women who needed mastectomies.

Per the Guardian, Handler created the Nearly Me prosthetic as a direct result of being told to stuff her bras with surgical gloves or socks to make it appear like she had breasts. The prosthetic was made out of "liquid silicone in polyurethane with a foam backing." It came as a set of two.

"I didn't make a lot of money in it," she said according to the LA Times. "It sure rebuilt my self-esteem, and I think I rebuilt the self-esteem of others."

Handler died less than a decade after her son

Handler's son Ken died in 1994 of a brain tumor. Less than a decade later in 2002, Handler died at age 85 from complications following colon surgery, the newspaper reported. At the time, she was survived by her daughter Barbara, her husband Elliot, her brother Aaron Musko, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Handler is played by Rhea Perlman in the "Barbie" movie, in theaters now.