Jack Ryan (designer)
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- This page is about the designer; for other uses, see Jack Ryan
John W. "Jack" Ryan, or Jack Ryan (12 December 1926 – 13 August 1991), the designer, is noted for two brushes with fame:
- as the redesigner of the Barbie doll
- and, briefly, as the sixth husband of Zsa Zsa Gabor.
[edit] Career
Ryan graduated from Yale University, worked for Raytheon as an engineer, and then moved to Mattel where he worked in research and development.
According to a 1997 Barbie article in Salon magazine, Jack Ryan worked at the Pentagon as an engineer designing Sparrow and Hawk missiles. Mattel hired him for his "space-aged savvy" and knowledge of materials.
Mental Floss' Fact of the Day for 27 December 2002 informs us that Ryan was a Yale graduate who worked as an engineer at military equipment manufacturer Raytheon before "money lured him away to head Mattel's department of research and development".
(As Raytheon and not the Pentagon directly developed the missiles, one can assume that Ryan worked at Raytheon and not the Pentagon, but it is unclear if Ryan worked at the Pentagon also.)
A book review [1] of Forever Barbie, ISBN 0-380-72049-3 , states that Jack Ryan was a, “Yale-educated electrical engineer at Mattel who was a whiz at designing toys.“ and refers to Ryan being at Mattel in July 1957.
At Mattel, Ryan also designed the Chatty Cathy dolls. Ryan worked at Mattel for 20 years. A photograph of Ryan is at the bottom of this page of inventors.
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