Elliot Handler
Elliot Handler · Economics & Business
Co-founded Mattel and designed its toys; Hot Wheels, Chatty Cathy and, with Ruth Handler, Barbie
9 April 1916, Chicago, Illinois, United States — 21 July 2011, Los Angeles, California, United States
United States
Mattel1945Elliot Handler is recognized among Jewish contributors to Economics & Business — Co-founded Mattel and designed its toys; Hot Wheels, Chatty Cathy and, with Ruth Handler, Barbie
Isadore Elliot Handler was born to a Jewish family in Chicago on 9 April 1916; his parents were Ukrainian Jews who spoke Yiddish at home. Soon after they married, his wife Ruth asked him to go by his middle name — she preferred Elliot to Izzy, and she feared American antisemitism towards a name so plainly Jewish as Isadore. Trained at the Art Center College of Design, he was the designer half of Mattel, which the Handlers founded in 1945 in a garage: he made the toys, she sold them.
Barbie in 1959 and Hot Wheels in 1968 both came out of that partnership, along with Chatty Cathy and Creepy Crawlers, and Mattel became the largest toy company in the world.
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Source: Wikipedia — Elliot Handler
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Co-founded Mattel and designed its toys; Hot Wheels, Chatty Cathy and, with Ruth Handler, Barbie
Source: Wikipedia — Elliot Handler
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