Dolls

Brigitte Starczewski-Deval makes dolls. Exquisite dolls. Dolls that wouldn't look out of place in a painting by one of the old masters who inspire her. In a craft demeaned by Barbies and Kens and countless other rubberized, plasticized, babbling, gurgling junk, Starczewski-Deval makes dolls for museums and collectors, for people who consider doll-making an art form. For people who won't wince at a price range of $2,400 to $14,000.

Frankie Stein, Clawdeen Wolf and the other not-so-mean girls at Monster High stole Barbie's thunder in the first quarter as sales of the toys led Mattel Inc. to more than quadruple its profit. Sales of Mattel's Other Girl line, headed by Monster High, were up 56% compared with the first quarter of 2012. The colorful dolls that are supposedly the offspring of famous monsters have leaped into second place in the El Segundo company's doll lineup. Barbie is still the queen bee at age 54, but sales of the iconic doll were down 2%. The fastest roller coaster and other record-setting thrill rides Mattel reported a profit of $38.5 million, or 11 cents a share, in the quarter that ended March 31, a leap up from $7.8 million and 2 cents a share in the same period a year ago. Revenue was up 7% to $995.6 million.

"GI Joe . . . GI Joe . . . Fighting man from head to toe." --From a 1960s Advertising Jingle * Maybe it was the uniform. Maybe it was the tiny M-1 carbine he carried. Or the battle scar across his polyvinyl cheek. "When we were kids, we really got off on that stuff," recalled Vincent Santelmo, 33, who received his first GI Joe at age 3 and now boasts of being the nation's foremost authority on the miniature man of war. "It was the cool toy to own." But it was more than a toy.

IFC announced a development slate of 11 projects on Wednesday, three pilots and eight scripts, and based on their descriptions, the channel appears to be going even more idiosyncratic in its projects. Among the projects possibly coming soon to the channel are an '80s-style soap opera animated entirely with baby dolls and a buddy comedy about a struggling comic-book illustrator befriending a vampire from the future, titled "Jetpackula. " PHOTOS: Hollywood Backlot moments The three pilots IFC has commissioned include "Timms Industrial Piping," the "Dynasty"-inspired series about the residents of Timms Valley, Wis., dealing with the disappearance of the founder and CEO of the town's biggest employer.

Kitty Black Perkins has her own ideas about dress-for-success: Make it pink and bouffant, and the more glitter the better. For 14 years, she has been fashion designer to the ultimate material girl, Barbie. And one thing she's learned about the little girls who own all those little dolls is that they think Barbie is pretty in pink. Black Perkins, who is principal designer for Mattel Toys' fashion dolls, works out of a studio in a top-secret design center in El Segundo.

To their legions of fans -- Sasha Obama and Snoop Dogg included -- the Ugly Dolls are anything but ugly. With names such as Babo, Big Toe and Puglee, the creatures look more like impish cartoon monsters than adorable Beanie Babies. Millions of these odd, squishy misfits have charmed their way into buyers' hands since David Horvath began doodling them eight years ago on letters to his college sweetheart, Sun-Min Kim. Manhattan Beach residents Horvath and Kim had dreamed about creating toys that could tell stories and make kids happy.

This post has been corrected, see below. Mattel Inc. is teaming with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to promote its Monster High dolls line with a message of girl empowerment. Starting July 13, the El Segundo toy giant will place signs in toy aisles of Wal-Mart stores nationwide urging girls to go online to read and watch videos and other material related to self-esteem. Such a campaign is a natural fit with a franchise centered on dolls fashioned as the teenage offspring of famous monsters such as Dracula and Frankenstein, said Lori Pantel, Mattel's vice president of global girls marketing.

A sizzling biography of "Valley of the Dolls" author Jacqueline Susann, due out March 19, is sending her widower, Irving Mansfield, running to his lawyers. Author Barbara Seaman, with a six-figure William Morrow advance, told Outtakes that "Jackie created her steamy best-sellers out of the raw materials of her life"--which Seaman has used as the basis of "Lovely Me," also the title of a Susann stage play.

A federal judge has granted a preliminary injunction that prohibits a local retailer from reproducing a doll that was popular during the waning days of World War II. U.S. District Court Judge Alicemarie H. Stotler on Tuesday prohibited Anaheim-based doll store operator Dale Noble from using the doll's name or fulfilling his plan to make copies of the dolls that were last manufactured in the 1960s.

Golly, what dollies! Re "Look out, Barbie: Mattel's Monster High is in session," Business, Aug. 13 While searching for the comics, I happened to notice the front page of the Business section. I had to stop and stare for a few seconds, so shocking was the photograph I saw: dolls wearing boots with heels so high that their feet are almost vertical; skirts so short they are really more like underwear; heavy makeup and mean smirks on their faces. Even though the Monster High girls are dolls, they are examples.

A federal appeals court has ruled that Mattel Inc. doesn't have to pay $172 million to MGA Entertainment Inc. to settle a trade secrets theft claim over Bratz dolls because a key claim should have been dismissed before trial. The ruling filed Thursday by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is the latest wrinkle in a bitter, protracted dispute between two Southland toy companies: El Segundo-based Mattel, the world's No. 1 toy maker and owner of the Barbie empire, and Van Nuys-based MGA, a little-known company until it introduced Bratz in 2001.

The Swedish firm OMM Design puts a sweet spin on a Russian tradition with retro-flavored zoo of nesting dolls. The smallest of the critters is barely an inch tall. They are joined by two other sets, one of nesting owls and another of pocket-sized people, some sporting excellent facial hair. But how could you resist such a friendly looking sea lion and optimistic lion? The nesting dolls are $28.50 for the set at Huset , 1316-1/2 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice, (424) 268-4213. MORE PICKS: Gifts for the home MORE PICKS: Gifts for under $50  

Life has left Fred Bradley , 81, weakened in a wheelchair. The small-time horse breeder from Frankfort, Ky., leaned back from his vantage point and smiled on Saturday at Santa Anita. "I'm not getting any better," Bradley concluded. "But I'm not getting any worse. " Groupie Doll, a 4-year-old filly Bradley and his trainer/son, William "Buff" Bradley , personally pulled to birth on their 320-acre farm, won the $1-million Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint by 41/2 lengths in the most dominating individual performance of the nine Saturday Breeders' Cup races.

Furniture can often meld into the background the longer you have it around. In the case of my kitchen, one black bar table with four white chairs seemed like a good idea at one point. But now? Boring, boring, boring.  Impressed with Kyle Schuneman's simple mods , I was looking for a way to change up this white bar chair. A punch of dip-dyed color - painting just the tips of the chair legs - seemed like it would do the trick and brighten the room. But why stop at explaining the step-by-step of my project?

When Claes Oldenburg was just getting started as an artist, he made small drawings of gigantic sculptures that he dreamed about installing in public places. Gluing these pictures to photographs of real parks and plazas let viewers imagine that they actually existed. Like all great works of Conceptual art, the magic happened in the mind's eye. At Richard Heller Gallery, Devin Troy Strother does something similar, but even more ambitious. In 69 terrifically generous pictures of people doing all sorts of things, the young artist acts as if he were bandleader, movie director, party host, master of ceremonies and king of the world.

Twenty years ago, Charles Ray Walker saw green bamboo shoots sprouting along an industrial mosaic of steel, concrete and dirt by the Los Angeles River in Boyle Heights. When the property owner told the homeless Texan he could stay if he kept the wedge of land clean, Walker's mind exploded with possibilities. "It was like, 'What do you want to do? What do you want to change?' " he said. "To have the ability to have this property to do whatever I want, but to do it in a good way, it was like, 'Whoa!

L.L. Knickerbocker Co. Inc. announced plans Thursday to sell a doll collection featuring movie costumes and accessories by famed Hollywood costume designer Edith Head. Knickerbocker, which markets doll collectibles and other merchandise, signed a licensing agreement with Seagram Co. Ltd.'s Universal Studios Consumer Products Group. Knickerbocker said the collection will be previewed in the fourth quarter and available in the first quarter next year.

A San Diego man's collection of Barbie dolls, which he values at $1 million, turned up Monday in a rental storage locker, all 5,000 of them jammed into 37 boxes and crammed into a tiny room from floor to ceiling, San Diego police said. Detectives turned up the dolls two weeks after they disappeared in what was perhaps the largest Barbie doll heist in the nation's history. The dolls were stolen from a Normal Heights home that was then torched twice in attempts to cover up the theft.

The following are some of the Lady Gaga-branded items available for purchase in her official Web store: a USB drive, headphones, tote bags, stickable "body beadz," Christmas cards, sunglasses, temporary tattoos and Bluetooth sets. Noticeably lacking? Action figures. Now, efforts to develop a new Gaga action figure have hit a serious snag. Multiple outlets have reported that MGA Entertainment, the company behind the popular, snotty Bratz doll toy line, has filed a $10-million lawsuit against the pop star.

Looks like Bratz Dolls won't be sporting a meat dress any time soon. A New York judge denied a request Wednesday by the dolls' makers to immediately order pop star Lady Gaga and her handlers to authorize production of the dolls. MGA Entertainment Inc., which produces Bratz Dolls, filed the order Tuesday, saying it signed a deal with and paid a $1-million advance to Bravado International -- the company that handles Gaga's entertainment merchandising -- to make a doll in her likeness.