March 29, 2024

Elliot Handler, Co-Founder of Mattel Toys, Dies at 95

The cause was heart failure, his daughter, Barbara Segal, said.

Mr. Handler helped introduce Barbie, helped design the talking doll Chatty Cathy and popularized Hot Wheels toy cars.

He began Mattel in 1945 with his wife, Ruth, and a short-term partner. Until the Handlers were forced out of Mattel in 1975, they oversaw a toy empire that is among the largest in the world today.

Elliot Handler was born April 9, 1916, in Illinois. He was a struggling art student and designer of light fixtures when, in 1939, he began making costume jewelry and dollhouse furniture in his garage in Southern California. Eventually, he designed a realistic-looking miniature piano that caused a furor at the New York toy fair. Stores ordered more than 300,000 of them — but the Handlers had mispriced the toys, losing about a dime on each one.

They fell into debt until a music arranger approached them with an idea for a new way to manufacture cheap, tiny music boxes. Previously, such musical devices were luxury items manufactured almost exclusively by European artisans. The Handlers started putting the devices into jack-in-the boxes, plastic ukuleles and dolls. The products were an almost immediate hit, earning millions. Eventually Mattel released a talking doll — Chatty Cathy — that tutored generations of children in the lilting intonations of “I love you,” and “May I have a cookie?”

Ruth Handler drove Mattel’s business decisions while her husband nurtured new toys. When Mrs. Handler said that Mattel needed to develop a plastic doll that looked like a mature woman — with a small waist, long legs and a bosom that could put an eye out — her husband and others demurred. She insisted, and named the product after their daughter, Barbie. Later came Ken — named after their son, who died of a brain tumor in 1994.

Years later, Mr. Handler became focused on die-cast toy cars. The company recruited designers from auto companies like General Motors, and perfected a manufacturing process for plastic wheels that could spin fast. Since then, more than 10,000 different Hot Wheels models have been manufactured, including “King ’Kuda,” “Evil Weevil” and the “Beatnik Bandit.”

“He loved coming up with new cars,” said Sid Handler, his brother. “He loved the design part, and Ruth loved the business. It worked pretty well. He was a quiet, kind man. I think that’s why he liked toys so much. They make people happy.”

After retiring from Mattel, Mr. Handler devoted himself to painting, particularly in the photorealistic genre. His wife died in 2002. Mr. Handler is survived by his daughter, his brother and five grandchildren.

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William Taylor II, Ex-Publisher of Boston Globe, Dies at 78

The cause was a brain tumor, which had been diagnosed two years ago, The Globe said.

Mr. Taylor was publisher from 1978 to 1997, succeeding his father, grandfather and great-grandfather. During his tenure, The Globe won nine Pulitzer Prizes.

“By any measure — Pulitzer Prizes, editorial integrity, revenues, profitability, treating employees fairly, commitment to the community — Bill Taylor was as good as any publisher of his generation,” said Benjamin Taylor, a second cousin who succeeded Mr. Taylor as chairman and publisher.

As chairman of the newspaper’s parent company, Affiliated Publications, Bill Taylor (as he preferred to be called) negotiated the $1.1 billion sale of the The Globe to The New York Times Company in September 1993. Affiliated had many potential bidders as it faced a 1996 deadline, at which time the family trusts that for generations had been the principal owners of the publicly traded company were to expire. That would have left The Globe vulnerable to an uninvited takeover. After extensive negotiations, Mr. Taylor closed the deal for what was then the highest price ever paid for a newspaper.

Somewhat conservative, Mr. Taylor was concerned in the years just before he became publisher that the paper’s editorial stance on school busing for integration was too proactive, especially in a city that was roiled by the issue. The paper’s coverage of race relations won the 1975 Pulitzer for meritorious public service.

Mr. Taylor was proud of his role in bringing racial and gender diversity to the newsroom. “I think it made for a better newspaper and gave opportunities to groups that hadn’t had access to good jobs and management,” he said in an interview last year.

William Osgood Taylor II was born on July 19, 1932, to William Taylor and Mary Hammond Taylor. He attended the Dexter School in Brookline, Mass., and St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H. After graduating from Harvard in 1954, he spent two years in the Army as a sergeant in West Germany.

In 1959 he married Sally Piper Coxe, who had been a roommate of his sister at Radcliffe College. Besides his wife, he is survived by three sons, William, Edmund and Augustus; four siblings from his father’s second marriage, Margaret Kane, Wendy Patriquin, Thomas Taylor and James Taylor; and four grandchildren.

Mr. Taylor was reluctant to go into the newspaper business. But at the urging of his father he joined The Globe, working in classified advertising and the promotion department and as a reporter before moving into management.

“Bill will long be remembered for his forward-looking leadership that positioned The Globe as a beacon of integrity in the world of journalism,” Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., the publisher of The Times, said in a statement on Monday. “The legacy he leaves behind will continue to serve The Globe long into the future.”

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