The spokeswoman did not give details, but the Los Angeles Times quoted her husband of 64 years, Elliot Handler, as saying she died on Saturday of complications from colon cancer surgery.

Handler founded Mattel Inc. with her husband and their partner Harold "Matt" Matson in 1942 -- the name Mattel was a combination of Matt and Elliot.

In 1959, she invented the doll -- named after her daughter Barbara -- because of an innate belief little girls wanted a doll they "could aspire to be like, not aspire to look after," doll expert Gaby Wood said in an article in Britain's New Statesman magazine earlier this year.

Handler moved the world of doll-making away from little girls playing "mommie" to girls dressing up like their big sisters, having boyfriends (Barbie had Ken) and being everything from cheerleaders to astronauts. As Handler once said, "Through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be."

The doll debuted at the American Toy Fair in 1959, with 350,000 sold in the first year.

Since Barbie's creation, Mattel has sold more than 1 billion dolls in 150 countries in a business worth an estimated billion a year. The "Barbie" doll, which started out as blond-haired, blue-eyed and with the equivalent of a 39-inch bust, now comes in about 80 different guises from black Barbies to Barbies running for president.

Ruth Handler was born the youngest of 10 children in a Polish-Jewish immigrant family that settled in Denver. She left for Hollywood at age 19. By 20, she had married her high-school sweetheart, Elliot Handler, and the couple started a successful giftware business in the garage of their Southern California home.

Mattel made dollhouse furniture and toys before Handler created the "Barbie" doll.

While little girls loved the dolls, feminists took issue with its looks and the supposed attitudes it represented.

When "Barbie" reached 40 years of age in 1999, Handler told an anniversary party, "She has been the embodiment of how girls view themselves and their future in the adult world."

The 11.5-inch-high doll is a perennial best-seller during the holiday season.

Handler and her husband were ousted from the company in 1975, and in 1978 she paid a ,000 fine to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to settle fraud and false-reporting charges.

Handler later founded and ran a company to manufacture prosthetic breasts for women who had had mastectomies. The company was inspired by her own difficulty finding a suitable prosthetic after a bout with breast cancer.

She sold that company, Ruthton Corp., to a division of Kimberly-Clark Corp. in 1991.