Greta Gerwig SHUTS OFF rumor that Barbara Handler – the woman who inspired the Barbie doll – is in a new movie

Greta Gerwig debunked an actress’s identity theory in her highly anticipated Barbie movie, which hit theaters July 21.

After the film’s release, it was widely speculated that Barbara Handler, who inspired the Barbie doll, appeared in a scene featuring the titular character of Margot Robbie as she relaxed on a park bench in Santa Monica, California.

However, the woman who spoke to the Australian actress, 33, was actually costume designer Ann Roth, not the daughter of Mattel co-founder and Barbie inventor Ruth Handler.

While talking about the Oscar-winning costume designer’s cameo, Gerwig shared Rolling stone: “I love that scene so much. And the older woman on the couch is the costume designer Ann Roth.”

‘She’s a legend. It’s a dead-end moment in a way — it leads nowhere,” the director explained.

Incorrect: After the film’s release, it was widely speculated that Handler (pictured in 2002) appeared in a scene with Margot Robbie’s titular character as he relaxed on a park bench in Santa Monica, California

After some suggested she “might cut” the moment, the 39-year-old Sacramento resident said that without the scene, “the story would just go on” and she wouldn’t know “what this movie is about.”

Handler spoke to in April TMZ on the highly anticipated film – which arrives in theaters on Friday – in which she said she felt Robbie, 33, succeeded in playing the iconic character.

She also praised the Greta Gerwig-directed film’s expanded cast, including Ryan Gosling, Issa Rae, Alexandra Shipp, Dua Lipa and John Cena.

Handler told the outlet that her mother Ruth, who died on April 27, 2002 after surgery amid a battle with colon cancer, would be thrilled to see the doll become the centerpiece of a big-budget Hollywood movie.

Ruth was the first president of Mattel, which she founded in 1945 with her husband Elliot Handler.

In inventing the Barbie doll, Ruth tried to bring to life the paper dolls Barbara played with. She opened up about coming up with the concept in her 1994 memoir Dream Doll: The Ruth Handler Story.

“I discovered something very important: they used these dolls to project their dreams of their own future as adult women… Wouldn’t it be great if we could take that game pattern and make it three-dimensional?” Ruth said about the paper dolls.

Ruth said in her book that her husband Elliot and their former business partner Harold “Matt” Matson were skeptical that the product would be a success.

Mistaken Identity: While many thought Barbara Handler was in the movie, the woman in the scene was actually costume designer Ann Roth (see above)

To Margot Robbie: While talking about the Oscar-winning costume designer’s cameo, Gerwig told Rolling Stone, “I love that scene so much. And the older woman on the sofa is the costume designer Ann Roth’

“‘Ruth, it won’t work,’ I was told bluntly,” she said in the book.

She added that there was also resistance to capturing the character’s femininity through her form.

“I really think that the prudishness of those designers – all of them men – stemmed mainly from the fact that the doll would have breasts,” said Ruth. “Even Elliot, who has an uncanny knack for correctly predicting what others will buy, worried that no mother would buy her daughter a coffin doll.”

In 1956, while vacationing in Switzerland, Handler noticed a novelty doll similar to her earlier idea.

Robbie leads the cast of the anticipated summer blockbuster based on the famous toy brand

She said, “Here were the breasts, the narrow waist, the long, tapered legs that I had enthusiastically described to the designers all those years ago.”

She took one home and had Mattel VP Jack Ryan work on adapting the doll for a young American audience. The famed toy debuted on store shelves three years later, with 300,000 dolls sold in its first year, the company said.

Mattel SVP of Barbie Design Kim Culmone described People how the idea wasn’t an easy sell in the late 1950s.

“Ruth was able to sell Barbie in a toy industry that was hesitant to come up with a doll a girl could use to project her hopes and inspirations,” Culmone said.