Martha Stewart Galleries 1

  Martha was born in the industrial city of Jersey City, New Jersey, a location known more for heavy industry than for rustic charm. Her parents, Martha and Edward Kostyra, were a schoolteacher and a pharmaceuticals salesman, respectively. When Martha was three, the family moved to Nutley, New Jersey, where she grew up with four brothers and sisters in a close-knit Polish-American family defined by the father's intense ambition for his children. Martha Kostyra was a hard-working, serious child. She won a partial scholarship to Barnard College in New York City and worked as a model to help pay expenses. She began her college career intending to study chemistry, but later switched to art, European history and architectural history. Just after her sophomore year, she married Andrew Stewart, a law student. After graduation, she continued a successful modeling career, doing television commercials for Breck, Clairol, Lifebuoy soap and Tareyton cigarettes. In 1965, her daughter was born, and Martha Stewart quit modeling.

In 1967 she began a successful second career as a stockbroker, her father-in law's profession. Andrew Stewart founded a publishing house and served as chief executive of several others. When recession hit Wall Street in 1973, Martha Stewart left the brokerage. She and her husband moved to Westport, Connecticut, where they undertook the ambitious restoration of the 1805 farmhouse seen in her television programs. She still lives there. In 1976, Martha Stewart started a catering business, first in partnership with a friend from college days, and then on her own. In ten years this business, which she ran out of the basement of her farmhouse, had become a $1 million enterprise. She also opened a retail store in Westport to sell specialty foods and supplies for entertaining.

She wrote articles for the New York Times and was an editor and columnist for the magazine House Beautiful. In 1982 Martha Stewart published the first of many lavishly illustrated books. Entertaining, co-written with Elizabeth Hawes, was an instantaneous success, and made Martha Stewart into a one-woman industry. Soon she was producing video tapes, dinner-music CDs, television specials and dozens of books on hors d'oeuvres, pies, weddings, Christmas, gardening and restoring old houses. Regular appearances on the Today show made her a household name. She signed an advertising and consulting contract with Kmart for a reported $5 million. For much of the 1980s, she was a contributing editor to Family Circle magazine before starting her own magazine, Martha Stewart Living, which attained a circulation of 1.3 million.

After appearing on multiple television specials on cable, public and network television, in 1993 Martha Stewart started a syndicated half-hour TV show called, like her magazine, Martha Stewart Living. Her enterprises have grown into a conglomerate, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. (MSO), with branches in publishing, television, merchandising and Internet/direct commerce, providing products in eight core areas: home, cooking and entertaining, gardening, crafts, holidays, housekeeping, weddings, and child care.

Over the years, Martha Stewart has shown patience and good humor in the face of the criticism and satire that are the inevitable lot of public figures in the mass media, but in 2003 she was confronted with a far greater challenge, an investigation of her personal stock trading by the Justice Department and the Securities Exchange Commission. Although she maintained her innocence of all charges, she was brought to trial in the first months of 2004. Although the judge dismissed the original accusation of insider trading from which the other charges stemmed, in March 2004 a jury found Martha Stewart guilty on the four remaining counts of misleading federal investigators and obstructing an investigation. As of this writing, she intends to appeal her conviction, but the future of her far-reaching enterprise appears uncertain. Whatever the future holds in store for Martha Stewart, she has had more influence on how Americans, eat, entertain, and decorate their homes and gardens than any one person in our history.

  "Howard Stern on Demand"
- Danny Bonaduce (2006) TV Episode .... Herself
- Howard's Last Day (2006) TV Episode .... Herself
"All My Children"
... aka All My Children: The Summer of Seduction (USA: promotional title)
- Episode dated 28 March 2006 (2006) TV Episode .... Herself
"Martha" .... Herself
- Episode dated 24 February 2006 (2006) TV Episode .... Herself
- Episode dated 23 February 2006 (2006) TV Episode .... Herself
"Late Show with David Letterman"
... aka Late Show Backstage (USA: title for episodes with guest hosts)
... aka The Late Show (USA: informal short title)
- Episode dated 10 February 2006 (2006) TV Episode .... Herself
- Episode dated 19 September 2005 (2005) TV Episode .... Herself
- Episode dated 17 May 2002 (2002) TV Episode (uncredited) .... Herself
- Episode dated 28 November 2000 (2000) TV Episode .... Herself
- Episode dated 1 November 1993 (1993) TV Episode .... Herself
"The Apprentice: Martha Stewart" (2005) TV Series .... Herself (Series 1) (2005)
"Larry King Live"
- Episode dated 25 December 2005 (2005) TV Episode .... Herself
- Episode dated 4 December 2005 (2005) TV Episode .... Herself
- Episode dated 22 November 2005 (2005) TV Episode .... Herself
- Episode dated 23 October 2005 (2005) TV Episode .... Herself
- Episode dated 11 October 2005 (2005) TV Episode .... Herself
"Today" .... Herself - Correspondent (1990-1997)
... aka NBC News Today (USA: promotional title)
... aka The Today Show (USA)
- Episode dated 16 November 2005 (2005) TV Episode .... Herself
"The Daily Show"
... aka The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (USA: new title)
... aka The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Global Edition (International: English title: cut version)
- Episode dated 14 November 2005 (2005) TV Episode .... Herself
"Ellen: The Ellen DeGeneres Show"
- Episode dated 9 November 2005 (2005) TV Episode .... Herself
"The Tonight Show with Jay Leno"
- Episode dated 8 November 2005 (2005) TV Episode .... Herself
"Late Night with Conan O'Brien"
- Episode dated 28 September 2005 (2005) TV Episode .... Herself
- Episode dated 30 October 1997 (1997) TV Episode .... Herself
Martha & Me (2005) (TV) .... Herself
"BBC World News"
- Episode dated 21 January 2004 (2004) TV Episode .... Herself
- Episode dated 19 January 2004 (2004) TV Episode .... Herself
"ABC Evening News"
... aka ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings (USA: long new title)
... aka ABC WorldNews Tonight (USA: new title)
- Episode dated 20 January 2004 (2004) TV Episode .... Herself
"The Barbara Walters Special"
... aka The Barbara Walters Summer Special (USA: repeat compilations title)
- The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2003 (2003) TV Episode .... Herself
Men in Black II (2002) .... Herself
... aka MIB 2 (USA: promotional abbreviation)
... aka MIIB (USA: promotional abbreviation)
"The Rosie O'Donnell Show"
- Episode dated 6 May 2002 (2002) TV Episode .... Herself
- Episode dated 27 February 2002 (2002) TV Episode .... Herself
- Episode dated 27 November 2001 (2001) TV Episode .... Herself
- Episode dated 19 September 2001 (2001) TV Episode .... Herself
- Episode dated 15 May 2001 (2001) TV Episode .... Herself
(7 more)
Big Trouble (2002) .... Herself
What Women Want (2000) (uncredited) .... Herself

"The Early Show" (1999) TV Series .... Herself - Correspondent (1999-2002)
... aka The Saturday Early Show (USA: weekend title)
American Fashion Awards (1999) (TV)
"Cosby"
- Turkey Day (1998) TV Episode .... Herself
"Imus in the Morning on MSNBC"
- Episode dated 29 September 2005 (????) TV Episode (voice) .... Herself
"CBS This Morning" (1987) TV Series .... Herself - Correspondent (1997-1999)
"Howard Stern"
- Episode dated 12 April 1996 (1996) TV Episode .... Herself
"3rd Rock from the Sun"
... aka 3rd Rock (USA: promotional abbreviation)
... aka Life As We Know It
- Post-Nasal Dick (1996) TV Episode .... Herself
"Ellen"
... aka These Friends of Mine (original title)
- Salad Days (1995) TV Episode .... Herself
"Martha Stewart Living" (1991) TV Series .... Herself (1991-2004)