several years, sweetening his offer until Ryan had a remarkable contract: one that
permitted him a royalty on every patent his design group originated; one that swiftly transformed him into a multimillionaire.
Ryan "had a funny little body, very compact, and a kind of bird puffy chest—like he had just puffed himself up," recalled
novelist Gwen Davis, who had met him through his fourth wife, Zsa Zsa Gabor. His hair appeared "painted on, like Reagan's,
and he had a very peculiar tan that looked as if it might have been makeup." At his parties, he wore clothing that was very
non-Brooks Brothers—khaki jackets with golden epaulets, imaginary uniforms, fantasy costumes for his fantasy life.
The setting for this strange life was the castle he built in Bel Air, on the site of the five-acre, eighteen-bathroom, seven-kitchen
estate that had belonged to silent-screen star Warner Baxter. In Jack's mind, "residence" was a synonym for "theme park."
He gave dinner parties in a tree house with a glittering crystal chandelier and occasionally forced his guests to down victuals
without utensils in a tapestry-ridden, vaguely medieval curiosity that he called the Tom Jones Room. "He ruined a perfectly
good English Tudor house by putting turrets on the end of it," chided Norma Greene, the retired liaison between Ryan's design
group and Mattel's patent department.
But the castle was not all lighthearted fun and games. It also had a dungeon— Zsa Zsa described it as a "torture chamber"—painted
an ominous black and adorned with black fox fur. Over the years the castle housed, often simultaneously, his first wife Barbara,
his two daughters, his brother Jim, multiple mistresses, one or two fellow engineers, and a group Zsa Zsa called "Ryan's Boys,"
twelve UCLA students who did work around the place in exchange for room and board.
Zsa Zsa never moved in with Jack; but even with her own house as a refuge, she could only endure seven months of marriage.
"Jack's sex life would have made the average Penthouse reader blanch with shock," she observed in her autobiography, One Lifetime Is Not Enough.
Meanwhile, in Hamburg, Germany, around the world from Mattel, 1955 was a key year for another designer who had a major influence
on Barbie. Reinhard Beuthien, a cartoonist, had created the comic character Lilli for the Bild Zeitung; on August 12 of that year, Lilli acquired a third dimension. The Bavaria-based firm of Greiner & Hauser GmbH issued her as
an eleven-and-a-half-inch, platinum-ponytailed, Nefertiti-eyed, fleshtone-plastic doll.
Lilli's cartoon antics fit right in with the Bild Zeitung's sordid, sensational stories. A golddigger, exhibitionist, and floozy, she had the body of a Vargas Girl, the brains of Pia
Zadora, and the morals of Xaviera Hollander. Beuthien's jokes usually hinged on Lilli taking money from men and involved situations
in which she wore very few clothes. Male wealth was of far greater interest to Lilli than male looks; she flung herself repeatedly
at balding, jowly fat cats.
In one typical cartoon, Lilli appears in a female friend's apartment concealing her naked body with a newspaper. The caption:
"We had a fight and he took back all the presents he gave me." In another, a policeman warns that her two-piece bathing suit
is illegal on the boardwalk. "Oh," she replies, "and in your opinion which part should I take off?" In yet another, she shouts
her phone number to a female friend on the street, hop-ing the rich-looking man nearby will overhear.
Her debut cartoon, which ran on July 24, 1952, set the tone for the others. It shows her with a gypsy fortune-teller begging,
"Can't you give me the name and address of this tall, handsome, rich man?"
Even people inured to the peculiarities of Barbie's body might cringe at the sight of the doll based on Lilli. Unlike Barbie,
Lilli doesn't have an arched foot with itty-bitty toes. She doesn't even have a foot. The end of her leg is
permitted him a royalty on every patent his design group originated; one that swiftly transformed him into a multimillionaire.
Ryan "had a funny little body, very compact, and a kind of bird puffy chest—like he had just puffed himself up," recalled
novelist Gwen Davis, who had met him through his fourth wife, Zsa Zsa Gabor. His hair appeared "painted on, like Reagan's,
and he had a very peculiar tan that looked as if it might have been makeup." At his parties, he wore clothing that was very
non-Brooks Brothers—khaki jackets with golden epaulets, imaginary uniforms, fantasy costumes for his fantasy life.
The setting for this strange life was the castle he built in Bel Air, on the site of the five-acre, eighteen-bathroom, seven-kitchen
estate that had belonged to silent-screen star Warner Baxter. In Jack's mind, "residence" was a synonym for "theme park."
He gave dinner parties in a tree house with a glittering crystal chandelier and occasionally forced his guests to down victuals
without utensils in a tapestry-ridden, vaguely medieval curiosity that he called the Tom Jones Room. "He ruined a perfectly
good English Tudor house by putting turrets on the end of it," chided Norma Greene, the retired liaison between Ryan's design
group and Mattel's patent department.
But the castle was not all lighthearted fun and games. It also had a dungeon— Zsa Zsa described it as a "torture chamber"—painted
an ominous black and adorned with black fox fur. Over the years the castle housed, often simultaneously, his first wife Barbara,
his two daughters, his brother Jim, multiple mistresses, one or two fellow engineers, and a group Zsa Zsa called "Ryan's Boys,"
twelve UCLA students who did work around the place in exchange for room and board.
Zsa Zsa never moved in with Jack; but even with her own house as a refuge, she could only endure seven months of marriage.
"Jack's sex life would have made the average Penthouse reader blanch with shock," she observed in her autobiography, One Lifetime Is Not Enough.
Meanwhile, in Hamburg, Germany, around the world from Mattel, 1955 was a key year for another designer who had a major influence
on Barbie. Reinhard Beuthien, a cartoonist, had created the comic character Lilli for the Bild Zeitung; on August 12 of that year, Lilli acquired a third dimension. The Bavaria-based firm of Greiner & Hauser GmbH issued her as
an eleven-and-a-half-inch, platinum-ponytailed, Nefertiti-eyed, fleshtone-plastic doll.
Lilli's cartoon antics fit right in with the Bild Zeitung's sordid, sensational stories. A golddigger, exhibitionist, and floozy, she had the body of a Vargas Girl, the brains of Pia
Zadora, and the morals of Xaviera Hollander. Beuthien's jokes usually hinged on Lilli taking money from men and involved situations
in which she wore very few clothes. Male wealth was of far greater interest to Lilli than male looks; she flung herself repeatedly
at balding, jowly fat cats.
In one typical cartoon, Lilli appears in a female friend's apartment concealing her naked body with a newspaper. The caption:
"We had a fight and he took back all the presents he gave me." In another, a policeman warns that her two-piece bathing suit
is illegal on the boardwalk. "Oh," she replies, "and in your opinion which part should I take off?" In yet another, she shouts
her phone number to a female friend on the street, hop-ing the rich-looking man nearby will overhear.
Her debut cartoon, which ran on July 24, 1952, set the tone for the others. It shows her with a gypsy fortune-teller begging,
"Can't you give me the name and address of this tall, handsome, rich man?"
Even people inured to the peculiarities of Barbie's body might cringe at the sight of the doll based on Lilli. Unlike Barbie,
Lilli doesn't have an arched foot with itty-bitty toes. She doesn't even have a foot. The end of her leg is
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