Elliot Handler He was survived by his 70-year-old daughter Barbara. Ruth Handler died in 2002. Elliot Handler Elliot Handler (April 9, 1916 – July 21, 2011) was an American inventor, businessman, and co-founder of Mattel. With his wife, he developed some of the biggest-selling toys in American history, including Barbie, Chatty Cathy, Creepy Crawlers, and Hot Wheels. Handler was born to a Jewish family in Chicago, Illinois, on April 9, 1916, and grew up in Denver, Colorado. He studied industrial design at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. In 1929, he met his future wife Ruth Mosko at a
Chelsea Handler 9 years old at the time. At age 19, she moved from New Jersey to Los Angeles, California, where she lived in her aunt's home, in Bel Air, and pursued acting while working as a waitress to support herself. At 21, Handler decided to pursue stand-up comedy after telling her story about driving under the influence to a class of other offenders, who found it funny. Handler was a member of the all-female cast of Oxygen network's hidden camera reality television series "Girls Behaving Badly", which aired from 2002 to 2005. Other shows on which Handler has appeared include "Weekends