Kenneth Handler

Kenneth Robert Handler (March 22, 1944 – June 11, 1994) was an American screenwriter, director, and film composer. He was the son of Mattel founders Elliot Handler and Ruth Handler, creators of the Barbie and Ken doll, the latter of which is named after him. He directed Delivery Boys and A Place Without Parents.

Kenneth Robert Handler (March 22, 1944 – June 11, 1994) was an American screenwriter, director, and film composer. He was the son of Mattel founders Elliot Handler and Ruth Handler, creators of the Barbie and Ken doll, the latter of which is named after him. He directed Delivery Boys and A Place Without Parents. ==Early life== Kenneth Handler was born on March 22, 1944, in southern California. He showed an early love and talent for both movies and music; he played piano, listened to opera, and watched foreign movies with subtitles. He was something of a non-conformist to the world and shared his father's creative talents, and got along reasonably well with his mother Ruth. This was in contrast to his sister Barbara, who had more fraught relations with her mother while growing up; the two siblings did not particularly get along. In later interviews, Kenneth said his sister was "a conform freak" in contrast to his self-designation as a "nerd", while Barbara called Kenneth an "eccentric." Handler attended Hamilton High School. ==Music industry involvement== It was reported in the 21 January 1967 issue of Record World that Handler and his Canterbury record label had moved into the r&b field. Veteran A&R man Bobby Sanders was to head the r&b division of Canterbury. With Sanders, came Soultown Productions which was to operate under the Canterbury brand. The first release for the label was "Countdown" by The Tempos which had been cut the previous week. The single had been a Four-Star Pick in the 7 January issue of Record World and according to the reviewer, it was chart bound. The song would later find popularity on the Northern soul scene. Another artist that was signed to Canterbury was folk singer Lenny Roybal. ==Relation with Ken dolls== Despite being named after him, Kenneth was not involved in the Ken dolls design, and felt ambivalent at best and resentful at worst toward them. He seems to have disliked the materialism promoted by the dolls (compared to more traditional play activities) and worried about negative impacts toward children's self-image. He wrote a letter to his parents in 1970 complaining that the dolls were "[kow]towing to those who can't accept the issue of their own sexuality." ==Personal life== Handler married Suzie Handler in 1963. They had three children. Handler died on June 11, 1994. His mother publicly stated that his cause of death was a brain tumor, but multiple writers, including Jerry Oppenheimer and Robin Gerber, attribute his death to AIDS-related complications. Handler had come out as gay to his parents and acknowledged his AIDS diagnosis in 1990. His parents and wife were all supportive of him and helped however they could. In 2019, Gerber told journalist Rich Juzwiak that she confirmed Ken Handler's cause of death by consulting correspondence between Ruth Handler and Ken's physician, and by interviewing the physician herself, as well as a box of restricted materials in the Mattel archive. ==External links==

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