Starter Drew McCall

Name: Starter Drew McCall

Made by and When: The Robert Tonner Doll Company., Inc., 2000

Material: All-vinyl with string jointing at the usual five points of articulation

Height: 14 inches

Hair, Eyes, Mouth: Short brown curly hair with bangs accented with a red ribbon headband, inset brown eyes, painted lower eyelashes at the corners of the eyes, and a smiling closed mouth

Clothes: Dressed in a white sleeveless jersey-knit T-shirt that has “Drew” embroidered in blue on the front, a red and white check button-down shirt without buttonholes but with red heart-shaped buttons, a light blue denim skirt, white socks, and white patent-leather lace-up low-top tennis shoes.

Other: Starter Drew McCall is from Robert Tonner’s reproduction of the 1950s Betsy McCall collection of dolls, which were preceded by paper doll cut-outs that ran in McCall’s magazine from 1951 until the magazine ceased publication. The original collection of paper dolls and dolls did not include Drew or any doll friends with brown complexions. Tonner used his artistic license to create an inclusive line.

A dress-shaped hang tag and an invitation to join Tonner Collector’s Club were included with the doll.

Starter Drew is the first 14-inch Drew that was later followed by several other 14-inch Dru dolls, some of which had extra articulation at the knees. For the later dolls, the name spelling changed from Drew to Dru. A variety of 8-inch Dru dolls were also added to Tonner’s reproduced Betsy McCall collection. See some of the 8-inch dolls here.

Gallery

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