Reese Witherspoon Plans Movie About Barbie Doll’s Jewish Creator
Actress Reese Witherspoon Image by Getty Images
Hollywood actress Reese Witherspoon is co-producing and possibly starring in a film in the works about the Barbie doll’s Jewish creator.
Witherspoon, who won an Academy Award for her performance in “Walk the Line” in 2006, is partnering with Bold Films on an adaptation of the 2010 book “Barbie and Ruth: The Story of the World’s Most Famous Doll and the Woman Who Created Her,” Variety reported Tuesday.
The brainchild of Ruth Mosko Handler, who founded the Mattel toy company with her husband, Elliot, Barbie debuted in 1959. According to the Jewish Women’s Archive, Handler, who died in 2002, was the youngest of 10 children born to Polish Jewish immigrants. In addition to creating Mattel and Barbie, Handler, who had breast cancer, created Nearly Me, a producer of breast prostheses.
“Ruth Handler’s inspiring true story reveals the triumphs and struggles of the genius businesswoman behind the creation of Barbie, the most iconic doll in the world,” Bold Films chairman Michel Litvak told Variety.
Witherspoon, 39, has starred in numerous films, including “Legally Blonde,” “Pleasantville” and “Sweet Home Alabama.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Dive In
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 4
Opinion What Jewish university presidents say: Trump is exploiting campus antisemitism, not fighting it
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture This Jewish New Yorker survived the Holocaust and the Hungarian Revolution, and is still helping others today
-
Fast Forward Trump says he and Netanyahu are ‘on the same side of every issue’ following talks on Iran, tariffs
-
Fast Forward California school board members accused of antisemitism during contentious meeting
-
Fast Forward Over 100 Chicago-area rabbis and cantors condemn Trump’s campus crackdown
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.