Ruth Handler Club children's television show, Mattel invested heavily in television advertising. The TV commercials for the Barbie doll paid off and Barbie rocketed Mattel and the Handlers to fame and fortune. Subsequently, they would add a boyfriend for Barbie named Ken, after the Handlers' son, and many other "friends and family" to Barbie's world. Handler was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1970. She had a modified radical mastectomy, which was often used at the time to combat the disease, and because of difficulties in finding a good breast prosthesis, she decided to make her own. Handler went on to found a
Ellen Handler Spitz Magazine, taught art history and studio art to children and adolescents in Providence, Rhode Island and New York, where she was elected to membership in the Mamaroneck Artists Guild and exhibited woodcuts and drawings; she also performed with The Potpourri Dancers, a modern dance company based in Croton-on-Hudson. Ellen Handler Spitz was married on April 29, 2018 to R. Howard Bloch, Sterling Professor of French at Yale University. She divides her time between Manhattan and Hamden, Connecticut. Her website is: http://www.ellenhandlerspitz.net Ellen Handler Spitz Ellen Handler Spitz is an American writer and academic noted for her expertise on children, psychology,