Ruth Handler was the creator of Barbie. She was born November 4, 1916 and died April 27, 2002. She was the youngest of 10 children. At age 19, she moved to Hollywood and married Elliot Handler, her high school sweet heart and also a plastic specialist. Harold Mattson and Elliot formed the Mattel toy company in 1945. Ruth Handler was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1970. She ran the breast prosthesis company, Ruthton Corporation, for 15 years, before selling it to a division of Kimberly-Clark. In 1978, she and several other former officers of Mattel were indicted on charges of fraud and false reporting to the securities and exchange commission. Handler was also inspired to make Barbie, on a trip to Europe in 1956, where she purchased a German produced Bild Lilli doll, Barbie's indisputable progenitor. The doll was based on a popular German comic anout a sassy, curvaceeous and free-spirited secretary named Lilli. Ruth had the idea to make Barbie by seeing her children play with paper dolls. So she decided to invent real dolls and she called them Barbie.