That’s true Handler had breast cancer in the 1970s. Perlman’s character tells Barbie that she had a mastectomy. The full truth of her life, in many cases, is even stranger than even the most die-hard Barbie fans may realize. But the movie does included several details that are genuine. The real Handler died in 2002 at the age of 85, so her appearance in the movie is more whimsical than realistic. Perlman, best known as the sarcastic waitress Carla from Cheers, appears in the Greta Gerwig–directed film as Ruth Handler-a real-life legend in the toy business who helped turn Mattel into a global powerhouse, in large part thanks to Barbie, introduced in 1959.

It’s a moment in which the doll literally meets her maker. Handler seems to know Barbie better than she knows herself, as she should.

Ruth Handler, the grandmotherly figure played by Rhea Perlman in the new Barbie movie, offers compassion and wisdom to Margot Robbie in a moment when her blissful doll-come-to-life faces an existential crisis.

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