Barbie” movie pokes some fun at Mattel’s fictional CEO played by zany Will Ferrell, the real lifestory of one Mattel honcho was anything but fun and games.The first — and the last — female to run the show at Mattel after co-founder Ruth Handler was ousted for cooking the toy company’s books was Brooklyn-born, Queens College co-ed Jill Barad, who quickly rose from hawking cosmetics on the road as a sales trainee for Coty cosmetics to becoming chairman of the board while decked out in a Barbie pink suit, shoes and lipstick.At age 45, in 1996, she became one of only two women running a Fortune 500 company.
But she was brought down by “a manifestation of greed” and what one Barbie designer called “the Princess Diana fiasco.”Barbie’s sales soared under Barad, who was a fan: She had 52 Barbies plus Andy Warhol’s rendition of the doll displayed in executive suite.
She was considered a shrewd and savvy marketing genius and featured on the covers of magazines like Business Week.But during her three-year reign, the glamorous Barad had a secret project: To overshadow Barbie’s glow and growth with exclusive Mattel doll collectibles in the likeness of two international icons.As a top Mattel executive involved in Barad’s hush-hush projects told me for my book, “Toy Monster: The Big, Bad World of Mattel,” “Jill was practically obsessed with having those two icons, Princess Di and Elizabeth Taylor, become Mattel dolls.
Jill felt it would give her and the company enormous prestige because neither had ever given their authorization for an exclusive doll in their likeness.”Beginning in the mid-1990s, Barad had quietly assigned her top marketing people to lobby Diana,Princess of Wales, to get her authorization to produce a doll in her.
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