Ben Marcus Rules

Margot Robbie shining like Sharon Tate in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2021).

Sharon Tate as Malibu in Don’t Make Waves (1967).

Margot Robbie as Barbie - with Ryan Gosling - in Barbie (2023)

Margot Robbie is the It Girl of the 2020s - talented, sexy, playing wild characters - so it was appropriate that Robbie’s Nelli Leroy character in Babylon was inspired by the It Girl of the 1920s - the Roaring 20s = Clara Bow. Almost one hundred years ago, Clara Bow was Roaring with the Twenties as the most popular silent film star - the It Girl.

MANY FACES OF CLARA BOW - MARGOT ROBBIE, BIZZY COBEN

Bow was one of the first to lease a property in the Malibu Colony and build a beach cottage for relaxing and/or carousing surrounded by mountains, ocean, sky, privacy and real country quiet.

Here in the Roaring 2020s, Robbie is the sort of joyfully talented, beachy blonde movie star you might expect to throw down $20+ large for a cottage in the Colony or along Malibu Road. Margot Robbie doesn’t live in Malibu that we’re aware of, but she is 'Bu-connected in a circular, Malibucentric flow, as in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood the Australian actress portrayed Sharon Tate, a Texas gal who starred as a blonde beach babe named Malibu in a Malibucentric “silly comedy” called Don’t Make Waves. Some say Tate’s Malibu character inspired the Malibu Barbie doll. 

MARGOT ROBBIE AS SHARON TATE AND BARBIE

And now the blonde, bodacious Australian actress who portrayed the blonde, bodacious Texan actress who inspired the blonde, bodacious Californian Malibu Barbie doll will soon be a vision in neon as blonde, bodacious Barbie in the upcoming Barbie directed by Greta Gerwig and co-starring Ryan Gosling and a cast of neon. 

Does that make sense? Quoting Kevin Nealon’s Potter character  in Happy Gilmore: “Feel the flow Happy. Feel it. It's circular. It's like a carousel. You pay the quarter, you get on the horse, it goes up and down, and AROUND. It's circular. Circle, with the music, the flow. All good things.”

Hang on, we’re gonna make it make sense.

QT IS IN LOVE WITH A CUTEY - A GHOST

If you loved the movie version of Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood but haven’t read Quentin Tarantino’s novelization - well there's a whole lotta love in that dense, 400-page book ready for you to dive in.  

Might sound trite to say that dude can write, but QT is encyclopedic when it comes to Hollywood and music and pop cultural California history and he masterfully lays it all down in an alchemy that makes it hard to put down.

The novelization of OUAT…IH is not a straight, literal retelling of the movie. Tarantino fills the grout of the movie by detailing the backstory of everyone from Charles Manson to Cliff Booth and his canine sidekick Brandy - a man and his dog who are equally badass. Killers.

Neil Young once said “Charles Manson couldn’t make it in the music business. That’s what all that was about.” And that is true, although the Beach Boys actually recorded one of Manson’s songs. Read all about it in OUATIH and then some: Why is Brandy such an effective attack dog? Read the book. Did Cliff Booth really execute his wife with a spear gun? Read the book. The answers are in the book

Writing for Variety.com, Chris Willman nails it, calling the book QT’s: “…epic Penthouse Forum Letter to cinema. You’ll know this trade-paperback novelization is cineaste-populist porn when you see it…like being locked inside the New Beverly for a week with Pauline Kael, Harry Knowles and Leonard Maltin.”

Yep it’s that good, and the novelization leads Malibuites and movie lovers onto paths they might not be aware of, but should be.

A SILLY COMEDY CALLED DON’T MAKE WAVES

Tarantino is in love with a ghost and he lovingly details Sharon Tate’s path from Texas to Hollywood and all the yin and yang she got mixed up in there. In the book QT mentions Tate co-starring with Tony Curtis and Claudia Cardinale in a “silly comedy” called Don’t Make Waves.

Don’t Make Waves is one of many MalibuCentric Movies All Citizens Should See.

Just as The King and Queen of Malibu should be required reading for anyone applying for Malibu citizenship, everyone who lives in Malibu should laugh and point at Don’t Make Waves.

This is indeed a silly comedy set in a Summer of Love Malibu - an alchemy of hipsters and squares where citizens kvetch about paying $100,000 for a Malibu house. [1967$100,000 would be 2023$840,987.89 in modern dollars but still…. You can barely buy a mobile home for that these days]. 

A goofball firestorm, Don’t Make Waves rages from deep in the hills and dales of Malibu down to the beaches and bedrooms. Johnny Fain is visible. Jim Bacchus does an "As Himselfie" cameo, and throws down some Mr. Magoo. A stuntman drowned doing a parachute stunt, swimming pools were still legal, there’s a big rainstorm and landslide at the end, and it’s a lot of silly fun. 

You might see yourself or your house or your neighbor’s house in it.

Sharon Tate plays a bodacious beach babe named Malibu - a trampoline gymnast, surfer and lifeguard who rescues Tony Curtis from drowning and shocks his heart maybe too much with some mouth to mouth resuscitation. That leads to a twisted web of sex triangles and quadrangles with Tate, Curtis, Claudia Cardinale, muscle-man Dave Draper, Robert Webber and Joanna Barnes all getting emotionally mixed and tangled up.

It’s comedy. It’s silly. Anyone who knows and loves Malibu will love Don’t Make Waves.

Some pop culture historians believe that the Malibu Barbie doll was based on Tate’s Malibu character in Don’t Make Waves.

But to get to Malibu Barbie in 1971 one must go back a dozen years to understand the Genesis and evolution of one of the most popular dolls in history - a doll that has become a cultural marker for America for the second half of the 20th Century and into the 21st:

BARBIE UBER ALLES

Of all the brands and products that have usurped the Malibu name, Malibu Barbie must be the most successful in cultural impact and dollars, maybe even more than the Chevy Malibu but certainly more than Malibu Rum, Malibu Boats, Malibu C, Malibu Kayaks, Malibu Grand Prix, Malibu Whatever.

The original Barbie was the brain-doll of Ruth Handler, the entrepreneurial wife of Elliot Handler, who was the El in “Mattel,” along with co-founder Harold “Matt” Mattson. Those three started Mattel in El Segundo in 1945 selling miniature pianos, picture frames and then doll houses, but went on to become a multinational marketing juggernaut behind Chatty Cathy, the Magic 8 Ball, Creepy Crawlies and Hot Wheels, among many other American standards.
Born Ruth Marianne Mosko in Denver, Colorado in 1916, by the 1950s Ruth Handler was a California mother of two - Barbara and Kenneth (!) - who thought her daughter had limited choice in dolls. Girl’s dolls were domestic moms or caregivers, while boy’s toys lived dangerously and got to do all the cool stuff: firefighters, doctors, pilots, astronauts, cowboys. 

Touring Germany in 1956 Handler saw an adult-figured German toy doll called Bild Lilli. Far from a conservative, buttoned-down 1950s housewife, Lilli was a blonde bombshell who wasn’t afraid to manipulate men to pay the bills. 

Messy Nessy’s Cabinet of Curiosities filled in the provocative details:

So it turns out Barbie’s original design was based on a German adult gag-gift escort doll named Lilli. That’s right, she wasn’t a dentist or a surgeon, an Olympian gymnast, a pet stylist or an ambassador for world peace. And she certainly wasn’t a toy for little girls…

Unbeknownst to most, Barbie actually started out life in the late 1940s as a German cartoon character created by artist Reinhard Beuthien for the Hamburg-based tabloid, Bild-Zeitung. The comic strip character was known as “Bild Lilli”, a post-war gold-digging buxom broad who got by in life seducing wealthy male suitors.

She was famously quick-witted and known to talk back when it came to male authority. In one cartoon, Lilli is warned by a policeman for illegally wearing a bikini out on the sidewalk. Lilli responds, “Oh, and in your opinion, what part should I take off?”

She became so popular that in 1953, the newspaper decided to market a three-dimensional version which was sold as an adult novelty toy, available to buy from bars, tobacco kiosks and adult toy stores. They were often given out as bachelor party gag gifts and dangled from a car’s rearview mirror.

Parents considered the doll inappropriate for children and a German brochure from the 1950s described Lilli as “always discreet,” and with her impressive wardrobe, she was “the star of every bar.” She did indeed have such a wide range of outfits and accessories you could buy for her, that eventually little girls began wanting her as a playdoll too. While toy factories tried to cash in on her popularity with children, Lilli still remained a successful adult novelty, especially outside of Germany. A journalist for The New Yorker magazine, Ariel Levy, later referred to Lilli as a “sex doll.”

Handler riffed on Bild Lilli, reduced her bosom somewhat but not entirely, cleaned up her act, named the adult doll after her daughter and introduced Barbie at the New York Toy Show in 1959. 

The first Barbie doll looked kind of like Lucy Ricardo with a topknot ponytail available in blonde or brunette. Although Brigitte Bardot began to popularize the bikini in And God Created Woman in 1956, two-piece bikinis that showed a woman’s belly button and “revealed everything about a girl except her mother’s maiden name” were still considered risque in the late 1950s. So Original Barbie wore a black and white striped one-piece swimsuit. 

Mattel marketed the Barbie doll as a "Teen-age Fashion Model” with clothes and accoutrement styled by Mattel fashion designer Charlotte Johnson. The dolls were Made in Japan - the clothing hand-stitched by Japanese homeworkers. The Barbie doll was an instant hit, and Mattel sold 350,000 dolls the first year at a cost of $3 - the equivalent of $30.95 in modern dollars. 

A million bucks in 1959 was righteous bucks indeed = 2022$10,315,424.67.

From that original doll, Barbie got a life, and a backstory, and a future. The success of the Barbie Model inspired a series of books from Random House which filled out the slim figure of the doll and revealed the story behind the demure smile and sideways glance. Barbie's full name was Barbara Millicent Roberts. She was the daughter of George and Margaret Roberts from Willows, Wisconsin.  No idea what age she was meant to be in 1959, but by 1961, she had a boyfriend named Ken Carson - named for Handler’s son Kenneth. 

Ken’s last name - and Barbie’s - came from Carson/Roberts - the name of Mattel’s Mad Men-era ad agency who were behind the Dodgers move from New York to Los Angeles, created the ubiquitous Have a Happy Day smiley face and turned Snowbird Ice into Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors.

Straight outta the 50s, Carson/Roberts and Mattel did land office business selling the doll, and Barbie began a long arcing ascent into the cultural stratosphere that is still going, 60 years and billions upon billions of dollars later.

5’ 9” X (36 X 18 X 33) X 110 POUNDS = CONTROVERSY

Barbie’s blazing success inspired controversy and lawsuits. At a 6/1 scale, Barbie penciled out at 5’ 9”, with an almost impossible figure of (36” chest x 18” waist x 33” inch hips). One version of Barbie came with a bathroom scale stuck on 110 pounds [We know what you’re thinking. Paris Hilton is  5’ 8” x (34” x 25” x 35”) x ± 115-121 pounds]. Even then, critics pointed at Barbie as presenting an almost impossible and even unhealthy ideal of the ideal female body. 

Researchers at a hospital in Helsinki, Finland argued that a human-scale Barbie would lack the 17 to 22% body fat required for a woman to menstruate.

In 1963, the "Barbie Baby-Sits" doll came with a book titled How to Lose Weight which advised: "Don't eat!" Critics claimed young girls trying to emulate that figure developed eating disorders that are all too familiar these days.

The German company behind Bild-Lilli sued Mattel in 1961 for infringing on a patent on the German doll’s hip joint and for claiming Mattel "falsely and misleadingly represented itself as having originated the design." Mattel filed a counter suit and it was all settled out of court in 1963. In 1964 Mattel bought the copyright and patent rights for the Bild-Lilli doll for $21,600 - the equivalent of $209,500.31 in modern dollars.

Mattel got a bargain. According to Statista.com: “In 2022, Mattel's Barbie brand generated gross sales amounting to about 1.49 billion U.S. dollars, a drop compared to the 1.68 billion U.S. dollars of the previous year.”

Believe it or not, it wasn’t until the 1960s that women were allowed to open their own bank accounts in America. Barbie flew in the face of that, and in 1962 defied convention by owning her own dream house. The Dream House was mid-century modern, and so was Barbie. An independent woman. A modern woman, straight outta the mid-20th Century. 

Change is a constant and Barbie constantly changed hair, clothes, style, attitude. Barbie is a cultural milestone marker from 1959 to now. That is why Barbie is still going. 

CHAMPAGNE DREAMS AND HOLLYWOOD NIGHTMARES

Did Sharon Tate’s Malibu character inspire Malibu Barbie? I guess we’ll never know. Tate’s Hollywood dreams became a nightmare in the second week of August 1969, when Sharon Tate was murdered by members of the Manson Family - an infamous incident re-dramatized by Quentin Tarantino in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. 

According to Madeleine Hiltz in thevintagenews.com for July 28, 2021: 

“In 1971, Mattel debuted their new “Malibu Barbie.” In an attempt to make this new doll more inclusive, Mattel designed Malibu Barbie to have thicker hair than her predecessor and tanned skin.

The unveiling of Malibu Barbie came out in 1971, two years after Sharon Tate’s murder. Since then, Mattel has never publicly come out citing Sharon Tate as the doll’s inspiration. Perhaps Malibu Barbie’s resemblance to Sharon Tate in Don’t Make Waves is purely coincidental, but the doll continues to maintain unrealistic beauty standards 50 years later.”

Writing for modbarbies.com, Wisconsin-to-San Diego transplant Lynne Pelzek detailed the rise of Malibu Barbie: 

“​​A plastic tan never fades! In 1971, Barbie kissed her mod years goodbye and welcomed Malibu Barbie #1067. She rocked the quintessential California surfer girl vibe with her blissfully tanned skin, blue eyes and platinum blonde hair – even though her roots peg her to be a native of Willows, Wisconsin! With California’s white beaches and Pacific blue waves, Malibu was the perfect setting for a new Barbie lifestyle. Golden couple, Malibu Barbie and Malibu Ken, could paddle out into the ocean to surf, roller skate on the boardwalk, make sandcastles and picnic at the beach or lay out and soak up the rays.

Mattel gave Malibu Barbie a fresh look. For the first time, she featured an open smile and her coy, sideways glance was updated to forward-looking eyes. Her TNT face was replaced with the Stacey face mold. She has long, straight, blonde hair with a slight off-center part and a smile much like Marcia Brady’s! Her lashes are painted on and she has soft coral lips. Malibu Barbie was ready for the surf in her powder blue swimsuit, lavender goggle glasses on top of her head and yellow beach towel.”

IS IT TRUE BLONDES HAVE MORE FUN?

It’s true blondes have more fun. Malibu Barbie went stratospheric like the original Barbie as she sold the southern California ideal of healthy, prosperous, fun living.

So there it is and it’s circular, feel the flow: Margot Robbie’s Nellie LaRoy character in Babylon was inspired by original Malibu Colony resident Clara Bow - the It Girl who Roared with the Twenties. Margot Robbie portrayed Sharon Tate in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, the same Sharon Tate whose bodacious blonde beach babe Malibu character in the 1967 silly comedy Don’t Make Waves may have inspired Malibu Barbie in 1971.

It’s circular: Sixty four years after Barbie debuted at the New York Toy Show, and fifty two years after Malibu Barbie hit the shelves, Margot Robbie will portray Barbie as the doll who falls to earth in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie.

Malibu residents know that Hollywood is more secretive than the NSA but as of mid-May, some images and information about this Barbie movie were leaking out from behind the neon curtain - and there is a LOT of neon in this movie.

According to movieinsider.com, the elevator pitch for Barbie goes like this:

“A Barbie doll living in Barbieland is expelled from the world for not being perfect enough, too eccentric and not fitting the usual mold. She goes on an adventure in the real world and by the time she returns to Barbieland to save it, she has gained the realization that perfection comes on the inside, not the outside, and that the key to happiness is belief in oneself.”

Condensing IMDB trivia about Barbie to the juiciest nuggets, Ryan Gosling accepted the role of Ken after seeing his daughter's Ken doll lying face down in the mud next to a squished lemon. He took a shot of the doll to director Greta Gerwig and proclaimed: "I shall be your Ken, his story must be told".

Ryan Gosling's Ken is inspired by the appearance of Sun Lovin' Malibu Ken from 1979, who also wore turquoise swimwear and had blonde hair with tan skin.

The budget for Barbie is $100,000,000 - because neon ain’t cheap - and it’s scheduled to be released in theaters on July 21. Robbie and Gosling star with the likes of Ryan Gosling, Will Ferrell, Helen Mirren, Rhea Perlman, Kate McKinnon, Michael Cera, America Ferrera and a bunch of new faces.

It’s circular. Go with the flow. All good things. Well, almost all.