Martha Stewart

Martha Helen Stewart (née Kostyra, Polish: [kɔˈstɨra]; born August 3, 1941) is an American retail businesswoman, writer, and television personality. As the founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, focusing on home and hospitality, she gained success through a variety of business ventures, encompassing publishing, broadcasting, merchandising and e-commerce. She has written numerous bestselling books, was the publisher of Martha Stewart Living magazine and hosted two syndicated television programs: Martha Stewart Living, which ran from 1993 to 2004, and The Martha Stewart Show, which ran from 2005 to 2012.

Stewart was convicted of felony charges related to the ImClone stock trading case; she served five months in federal prison for fraud and was released in March 2005. There was speculation that the incident would effectively end her media empire, but in 2005, Stewart began a comeback campaign, and her company returned to profitability in 2006. Stewart rejoined the board of directors of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia in 2011 and became chairwoman of her namesake company again in 2012. The company was acquired by Sequential Brands in 2015. Sequential Brands Group agreed in April 2019 to sell Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, including the Emeril brand, to Marquee Brands for $175 million with benchmarked additional payments.

In 2024, at the age of 81, Stewart became the oldest woman to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue magazine. In 2024, she was the subject of a Netflix documentary titled Martha, directed by R. J. Cutler.

Martha Stewart was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, on August 3, 1941. She is the second of six children born to parents Martha (née Ruszkowski; 1914–2007) and Edward Kostyra (1912–1979) and is of Polish heritage. Her parents were teachers, with her father later becoming a pharmaceutical salesman. When Stewart was three years old, the family moved to Nutley, New Jersey. She adopted the name "Grace" for her Catholic confirmation name.

When Stewart was 10, she worked as the occasional babysitter for the children of Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, and Gil McDougald, all players for the New York Yankees. Mickey and Merlyn Mantle had four sons, whom Stewart watched and for whom she organized birthday parties. She also began modeling. At 15, Stewart was featured in a television commercial for Unilever. She went on to appear in television commercials and in magazines, including one of Tareyton's "Smokers would rather fight than switch!" cigarette advertisements. During her college years, she supplemented her scholarship money through "modeling jobs at $15/hour — which was a lot of money at that time." Among the companies she modeled for was Chanel.

Stewart's mother taught her how to cook and sew. Later, she learned the processes of canning and preserving when she visited her grandparents' home in Buffalo, New York. Her father had a passion for gardening and passed on much of his knowledge and expertise to his daughter. Stewart was also active in many extracurricular activities, such as the school's newspaper and art club.

Stewart graduated from Nutley High School. She attended Barnard College of Columbia University, originally planning to major in chemistry, but switching to art, history, and later architectural history. To help pay her college tuition, she did fashion modeling for Chanel. During this time, she met Andrew Stewart, who finished his law degree at Yale Law School. They married in July 1961. She returned to Barnard a year after their wedding to graduate with a double major in history and architectural history.

In 1967, Martha Stewart began a second career as a stockbroker, her father-in-law's profession. Meanwhile, Andrew Stewart founded a publishing house and was chief executive of several others. Andrew and Martha Stewart moved to Westport, Connecticut, where they purchased and restored the 1805 farmhouse on Turkey Hill Road that would later become the model for the TV studio of Martha Stewart Living. During the project, Stewart's panache for restoring and decorating became apparent.

In 1976, Stewart started a catering business in her basement with a friend from her modeling days, Norma Collier. The venture quickly became successful but soured when Collier alleged that Stewart was difficult to work with, and was also taking catering jobs on the side. Stewart soon bought Collier's portion of the business. Stewart was also hired as the manager of a gourmet food store, the Market Basket, but after a disagreement with the owners at the mini-mall she was forced out and opened her own store.

Andrew had become the president of prominent New York City publisher Harry N. Abrams, Inc. In 1977, he was responsible for releasing the English-language edition of The Secret Book of Gnomes series, by Dutch authors Wil Huygen and Rien Poortvliet, which quickly became a blockbuster success and was on The New York Times Best Seller list. He contracted Stewart's company to cater the book release party, where Stewart was introduced to Alan Mirken, head of Crown Publishing Group. Mirken was impressed by Stewart's talent as a chef and hostess and later contacted her to develop a cookbook, featuring recipes and photos from the parties that Stewart hosted. The result was her first book, Entertaining (December 13, 1982), ghostwritten by Elizabeth Hawes.

Following the success of Entertaining, Stewart released many more books under the Clarkson Potter publishing imprint, including Martha Stewart's Quick Cook (1983), Martha Stewart's Hors d'Oeuvres (1984), Martha Stewart's Pies & Tarts (1985), Weddings (1987) (which was also ghostwritten by Elizabeth Hawes), The Wedding Planner (1988), Martha Stewart's Secrets for Entertaining (1988), Martha Stewart's Quick Cook Menus (1988), and Martha Stewart's Christmas (1989), among others. During this time, she also authored dozens of newspaper columns, magazine articles, and other pieces on homemaking, and made numerous television appearances on programs such as The Oprah Winfrey Show and Larry King Live.

Andrew and Martha Stewart separated in 1987 and divorced in 1990.

In 1961, she married Andrew Stewart, then a student at Yale Law School. Their only child, daughter Alexis Stewart, was born in 1965. The couple separated in 1987 and divorced in 1990. Through Alexis, she has two grandchildren. Stewart later revealed that she kissed a stranger during their honeymoon and that she had an affair early on in their marriage. Subsequently, Martha Stewart dated Anthony Hopkins but ended the relationship after she saw The Silence of the Lambs. She stated she was unable to avoid associating Hopkins with the character of Hannibal Lecter.

Stewart dated billionaire Charles Simonyi, who was an early employee of Microsoft and head of their software group, on and off for 15 years. She featured footage of him as a space tourist aboard Soyuz on her television show in 2007. They broke up around February 2008.

In 1995, Stewart received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

In 1997, Martha Stewart was honored with an Edison Achievement Award for her commitment to innovation throughout her career.

In 2018, Stewart was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.

In 2020, Stewart was inducted into the Licensing International Hall of Fame.

Stewart has been portrayed and parodied in several forms of media. Two television films have been made out of her life story: Martha, Inc.: The Story of Martha Stewart (2003) and Martha: Behind Bars (2005). She was portrayed by Cybill Shepherd in both films. A character loosely based on her, Judy King, featured in the television series Orange is the New Black.

She also made a cameo appearance in the fourth season of HBO's High Maintenance, as well as the comedy films Big Trouble (2002) and Bad Moms (2016).

She is the subject of the 2024 documentary film Martha directed by R. J. Cutler.

Good Thing, a biographical film starring Cate Blanchett as Stewart, is currently in development.