This Risque Doll Inspired Barbie & Beat Her Live-Action Movie Debut 65 Years Ago

While Ruth Handler's Barbie revolutionized the toy industry in the U.S. in 1959 by introducing a doll of a grown-up woman instead of a baby or young girl, a European toymaker actually beat the Mattel co-founder and president to the marketplace with a similar — albeit more risqué — 11 1/2-inch figure.

Handler's invention, of course, has become a pop culture phenomenon again thanks to writer-director Greta Gerwig, whose "Barbie" movie hit $1 billion at the worldwide box office two weeks after the film was released on July 21, 2023. Yet while Barbie's turn on the big screen has been a long time coming, the German doll — which was named Bild-Lilli — already had a movie modeled after her 65 years ago when the film "Lilli — ein Mädchen aus der Großstadt" was released in Deutsch cinemas.

Known in English as "Lilli –- A Girl in the Big City," the film was released on March 6, 1958, in West Germany and starred then-23-year-old Danish actor Ann Smyrner in the title role. Billed as a crime comedy, the film clearly had more adult themes than you would expect from a movie character that was based on a doll, but there was a specific reason for that.

Bild-Lilli was released in 1955, not as a toy for children but as a more risqué product meant for adult males. The character originated in a comic strip by cartoonist Reinhard Beuthein and was viewed as a materialistic sex symbol.

According to the book "Barbie and Ruth," Ruth Handler's first attempt at creating what would eventually become Barbie hit the wall when she suggested the idea to her husband and Mattel co-founder Elliot Handler. The book quoted a conversation Elliot had with his wife and business partner: "Ruth, no mother is going to buy her daughter a doll with breasts." Elliot's associates agreed with his mindset, as Gerber wrote, "They were comfortable with toy guns and rockets, musical instruments and pop-up toys, but the doll Ruth described defied their imagination."

Ruth Handler's idea to create a doll in the guise of a grown woman stayed very much alive, however, and as fate would have it, she encountered a Bild-Lilli doll on a family trip to Europe in 1956. However, Handler's idea for the doll was to make and market it as a toy to inspire young girls, rather than have it available in tobacco stores where adult men could purchase it as a gag gift. As such, the German Bild-Lilli doll and its reputation for being risqué got a major American makeover and came to be known as Barbie, which Handler named after her daughter, Barbara, in 1959. "Handler decided to reinvent this pornographic caricature as the all-American girl," wrote historian Carol Ockman (via History).

Of course, Barbie's story didn't end with the release of a doll named after Barbara Handler. The male doll in the line — named after Ruth Handler's son, Kenneth Handler — came next in 1961, but neither of the children were flattered. In fact, the real-life Barbie and Ken hated their claim to fame.