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American retail businesswoman and writer Martha Stewart was born on August 3, 1941, to Edward Kosytra and Martha Ruszkowski. The family relocated to Nutley, New Jersey when she was three years old. Martha had a business inclination from a very young age. At age 10, she took up the job of babysitting the kids of New York Yankees players Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, and Gil McDougald.
When she was 15 years old, she was in a TV commercial for Unilever as a model. She was a model and a Wall Street stockbroker before getting into cooking and housekeeping. In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, she talked about her journey to becoming America’s first female self-made billionaire: “I was living two completely different lives. And the life of a housewife piqued my interest more than the life on Wall Street.” She later entered into an agreement with Time Publishing ventures in 1990, launching a magazine called Martha Stewart Living, serving as editor-in-chief. Due to the availability of funds she got through her partner, Sharon Patrick, she was able to buy all businesses related to her brand and turned it into a new company known as Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSLO), of which she was the president and CEO.
Reflecting on her childhood in one of her interviews with Jill Martin on Shop the Stars, she said, “I was one of six kids and two working parents. We were taught to work, and we were all encouraged to pay our own way.”
She holds her late mother in high esteem. “My mom taught me everything — cooking and sewing. She sewed my clothes. She edged napkins and tablecloths. I did her pierogi recipe on TV. Excellent in penmanship, my mother wrote letters longhand. She swam at the YMCA pool. She taught me about living well. I miss her,” she said in a tribute to her mother, who died in 2007.
Stewart was drawn to the creativity of homemaking from a young age. Little did she know that homemaking was going to give her one of her major breaks in life. “As a small girl, I frequently cut flowers from our garden to make arrangements for my mother. When I was growing up, my family celebrated every holiday with great zeal,” she explained. Stewart’s mother and namesake was the one who instilled in her a love of cooking and sewing; however, she told Maclean’s that Julia Child was her “original teacher.”
“I got to meet her and work with her several times. She piqued my interest in fine dining. I cooked every single recipe in her two big volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” Stewart said to Maclean’s at the time.
Being 5’9″, she began modeling in high school at the age of 15, as mentioned previously. She has walked in fashion shows and modeled in advertisements for brands ranging from Clairol to Chanel. With the revenue from her modeling gigs, she was able to fund her way through college.
Her initial plan was to study chemistry at Barnard College of Columbia University, but she changed her major several times before deciding on architectural history.
While she was still in college, she met Andrew Stewart, who graduated from Yale Law School, and the two fell in love. They got married in July 1961, which caused a hiatus in her college study. However, she returned to school a year later to get her architectural history degree.
Four years into the marriage, the couple welcomes their daughter Alexis. After the birth of their daughter, Martha got a job as an institutional stockbroker on Wall Street, a job which she held on to for seven years. While reflecting on the experience she acquired while on the job, “The job taught me so much about what it takes to build a real business, a real company – a meaningful and useful enterprise,” she wrote on her website.
The couple relocated to Westport, Connecticut, in 1971 and bought an 1805 farmhouse on Turkey Hill Road, which they had to make a total restoration.
During the restoration process, Martha became interested in home repair, design, and gardening, leading to her purchasing other old farmhouses she renovated. One of them is the 1925 farmhouse on the property known as the “Winter House.” Stewart enlisted the assistance of architect Allen Greenberg to expand the farmhouse only a year after purchasing it.
She co-founded a catering company called Uncatered Affair with her friend Norma Collier. While the company grew quickly, the two friends feuded, with Stewart eventually buying Collier out of the company. The business started in her kitchen in 1973, making everything from scratch, and went on to attract corporate and celebrity clients, catering parties for up to 1,200 people. According to Entrepreneur, her catering company rose to become a $1 million enterprise over the next decade. Due to her success in the business, she began contributing to the New York Times food and lifestyle section.
Her first writing deal came as a result of a book release party for a client by her husband, Andrew, to which she was hired to cater. During the event, she met Alan Mirken, the head of Crown Publishing Group, who contacted her about publishing her first cookbook, according to Investopedia. The cookbook, Entertaining, was published in 1982, and it was ghostwritten by Elizabeth Hawes. She wrote about the deal on her website: “It was an important step in my life. I had found my niche.”
Martha Stewart collaborated with Time Publishing Ventures in 1990 to launch the magazine Martha Stewart Living which she was the Editor-in-Chief. In addition to the magazine, she also started her own television show of the same name in 1993.
It was aired twice in the 1990s before its cancelation in 2004, only to restart successfully from 2005 to 2012. The launch came at the time her divorce from Andrew was finalized. Talking with PEOPLE, she said, “The life that I had is over, and what has replaced it is better.”
Stewart’s company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO), became listed and launched its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange in October 1999. The stock made the most amazing leap by tripling in value at the end of the business day, catapulting Stewart into a new dimension. She had become the first self-made female billionaire.
In an interview with PEOPLE in 2020, she noted, “I had opposition, and that kind of opposition to a woman-built business was really outrageous. Even my own lawyers were negative about the possibility of success. I think I helped so many other women believe in their own ideas and their own business plans and their own paths to glory.”
Things began to go downhill for Stewart when the Department of Justice launched an investigation on her sudden dumping of 4,000 shares of ImClone Systems stock. She was charged with insider trading as the company’s breakthrough cancer drug was rejected by the FDA a day after Stewart dumped the shares.
The trial started in January 2004. Being found guilty, she was sentenced to five months in prison and five months of home confinement, followed by two years of supervised probation. She was also fined $30,000 in July 2004. In a statement after the verdict, the lifestyle icon said, “Today is a shameful day. It’s shameful for me and my family, and my company. More than 200 people have lost their jobs, and I want them to know I am very, very sorry.”
After serving out her sentence, which started in October 2004 at a minimum-security women’s prison in West Virginia, she was released in March 2005.
Without wasting time, she returned to TV with a daytime show titled The Martha Stewart Show. She has also been a guest on other TV shows where she shares her ideas, especially regarding food and lifestyle.
Maintaining a fit and fantastic body shape, in 2020, she posted a sexy picture of herself on Instagram. The image was considered by many as a thirst trap, and it became quite sensational immediately. While talking to PEOPLE about the photograph, she explained, “It looked so good, so I posted it. I didn’t know what a ‘thirst trap’ was, but now I do. Now I’m looking for the next thirst trap. I love doing those promiscuous, provocative things, because it’s just fun.”
Stewart also revealed how she maintains her body. “I really care about maintaining an aura of good health, which is basically the food I eat. And genetics has a lot to do with it. My dad was a gorgeous man with very good skin. So was Mom. She was fantastic until she was 93 years old. My hope is that unless I kill myself with too much hard work, I will probably survive very nicely for a long time.”
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