Jack Ryan, the “Father of Barbie”

A brilliant Yale engineering school graduate who went from designing weapons of mass destruction for the Cold War Pentagon to bringing Barbie to life. He even molded real-life women in Barbie’s image-- the long legs, the thin waist, the Pamela Anderson-esque breasts--and there were many in his “swinging” world as both a technologist and a playboy. As a close friend recounts, “When Jack talked about creating Barbie, or improving Barbie…it was like listening to somebody talk about a sexual episode…a sexual pervert…”

Ruth Handler, the “Mother of Barbie”

The driven, ambitious, and cutthroat co-founder of Mattel, who after Ryan’s bizarre death claimed all credit for inventing Barbie. Handler waged a deliberate campaign to diminish, if not altogether erase Ryan’s importance as the Father of Barbie, and take full credit as the billion dollar doll’s inventor. While embarrassed about Ryan’s sexual proclivities – and even more about the huge royalties she had to pay him for his lucrative inventions – it was Handler who almost brought Mattel to its corporate knees by helping to “cook the books” and was ousted from the company. The 61-year-old grandmother avoided imprisonment in a plea bargain deal, and was sentenced to 2,500 hours of community service and a $57,000 fine.

Jill Elikann Barad

A glamorous real-life Beverly Hills Barbie who skyrocketed from a lowly job in Mattel’s novelty-development department to CEO after brilliantly marketing Barbie through the Milky Way. Barrad’s efforts generated billions of dollars for the company before she was axed after making what is considered one of the worst corporate acquisitions in history. During her rise and before her fall, she earned a reputation as a fearsome diva for firing on a whim and promoting people based on how they looked and dressed. Notes a Mattel colleague, “Jill believed you are what you wear. Her comment would be, ‘Well, what does she know? Look at what she wears. Look what she looks like.” She was Hollywood personified, even having had a role in the mobster film “Crazy Joe”.

Roger Sweet

A genius designer who developed one of Mattel’s hugely successful boys’ toys, He-Man, as well as a toy line called Masters of the Universe. When the money rolled in to Mattel coffers – at one point He-Man was outselling even Barbie – he was crowned one of the toymaker’s stars. But when Mattel oversold the toy to stores whose shelves were sagging under He-Man’s weight and sales went into the proverbial toilet, so did Sweet, who was forced out. Fearful he had been blacklisted in the industry, Sweet wound up driving a forklift at Home Depot.

Bob Eckert

Eckert became the big cheese at Mattel as CEO after a long career at Kraft Foods. A shrewd, but mild-mannered Midwesterner who is compared to the likeable Chevy Chase character Clark Griswold in “National Lampoon’s Vacation”, he was at the helm during the Toy Terror summer of 2007 when millions of Mattel toys made in China had to be recalled because of dangerous lead in the paint. The media, the U.S. Congress, and furious parents scandalized Mattel. Also during his reign, Eckert saw Barbie’s sales and popularity plummet when an upstart series of sexy dolls – the Bratz Pack – hit the toy scene, leading to the Barbie vs. Bratz toy trial of the century