Martha Stewart is an American businesswoman, writer, and television personality. As founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, she has gained success through a variety of business ventures, encompassing publishing, broadcasting, merchandising, and e-commerce.
Discover some interesting facts about her!
1. Martha Helen Stewart was born August 3, 1941 in Jersey City, New Jersey.
2. She is the second of six children born to middle-class parents, Edward “Eddie” Kostyra and Martha Ruszkowski Kostyra, and is of entirely Polish heritage.
3. When Stewart was three years old, the family moved to Nutley.
4. She adopted the name “Grace” for her confirmation name.
5. 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.
6. Mickey and Merlyn Mantle had four sons, for whom Stewart watched and organized birthday parties.
7. She also began modeling.
8. At 15, Stewart was featured in a television commercial for Unilever.
9. She went on to appear in television commercials and in magazines, including one of Tareyton’s “Smokers would rather fight than switch!” cigarette advertisements.
10. During her college years, she supplemented her scholarship money through “modeling jobs at $50/hour — which was a lot of money at that time”.
11. Her clients included Chanel.
12. Stewart’s mother taught her how to cook and sew.
13. Later, she learned the processes of canning and preserving when she visited her grandparents’ home in Buffalo, New York.
14. Her father had a passion for gardening and passed on much of his knowledge and expertise to his daughter.
15. Stewart was also active in many extracurricular activities, such as the school newspaper and the Art Club.
16. Stewart graduated from Nutley High School.
17. She attended Barnard College, originally planning to major in chemistry, but switching to art, European History, and later architectural history.
18. To help pay her college tuition, she did fashion modeling for Chanel.
19. During this time, she met Andrew Stewart, who finished his law degree at Yale Law School.
20. They married in 1961.
21. She returned to Barnard a year after their marriage to graduate with a double major in History and Architectural History.
22. Their only child, a daughter named Alexis, was born in 1965.
23. The couple separated in 1987 and divorced in 1990.
24. Stewart dated Sir 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.
25. Stewart reportedly dated billionaire Charles Simonyi, who was an early employee of Microsoft and head of their software group, on and off for 15 years.
26. She featured footage of him as a space tourist aboard Soyuz on her television show in 2007. They broke up around February 2008.
27. Stewart is an avid animal lover.
28. Her pets include champion show Chow Chow dogs, French Bulldogs, Himalayan cats, and Friesian horses, including her dark horse Rutger.
29.Stewart also created a video on behalf of fur-bearing animals after being approached by PETA while in jail.
30. Stewart stated, “I used to wear real fur, but, like many others, I had a change of heart when I learned what actually happens to the animals”.
31. Stewart filmed a public service announcement on behalf of the farm animal welfare organization Farm Sanctuary.
32. Martha Kostyra, Stewart’s mother, died at the age of 93 on November 16, 2007.
33. Kostyra, also called “Big Martha” by her family, had appeared on Martha Stewart Living numerous times.
34. Stewart currently resides in Katonah, a hamlet of the town of Bedford, New York.
35. She also maintains a 35,000-square-foot residence on Mount Desert Island in Seal Harbor, Maine, known as ‘Skylands’, the former summer estate of automobile designer and tycoon Edsel Ford, with gardens designed by renowned landscape architect Jens Jensen.
36. Martha’s favorite pen is the felt-tipped “le pen” — in black, brown, or blue, depending on what she’s signing. For the holidays, she even breaks out red.
37. Martha loves Post-Its, and leaves notes for herself — and others — all over the house and office. She’s even been known to color coordinate them with the decor.
38. She’s been known to stand in front of an open refrigerator and drink buttermilk straight from the carton and eat pickles right out of the jar. If she spots some liverwurst, forget about it — she’s in heaven.
39. If you are lucky enough to be invited to Skylands, her home in Maine, the 5 a.m. hikes are mandatory.
40. She once sent an email banning black rubber-soled shoes from the office because of the streaks they left on the floors — only she left out the R, so it read “black steaks.”
41. She’s a big fan of rapper Eminem.
42. She’s never really liked bananas, but she absolutely loves hot dogs.
Got anything to add?