15 things you probably never knew about Martha Stewart
Shelby Slauer
- August 3 is Martha Stewart's birthday — this year she turns 79.
- Stewart is a renowned television personality, businesswoman, and cookbook author, but there are plenty of surprising things you probably don't know about her.
- In college, she modeled to pay her tuition, and her clients ranged from Unilever to Chanel.
- She spent time in prison after being convicted for four felony charges, and has since shared stories about her experience.
Because Martha Stewart has been in the limelight for so long, a lot of people think they know everything about her.
But she is the queen of reinvention, and has lived so many different lives that it's impossible to keep up.
Keep scrolling to read some lesser-known facts about the savvy businesswoman.
She was born Martha Kostyra.
She married Andrew Stewart, a Yale Law School student, in 1961, before graduating from college.
They divorced in 1990. "I had to sacrifice a marriage because of the lure of the great job, the fabulous workplace," Stewart told CNN. "But, I don't regret it at all, because what I've done is something bigger and better than just one marriage."
She's the second of six children.
All four of her grandparents were immigrants from Poland.
She started working as a model at age 13 and continued throughout college to pay for tuition.
She worked with clients from Unilever to Chanel, and said she could sometimes make up to $50 an hour through modeling — a pretty penny back in the '50s and '60s.
She babysat for a few legendary baseball players.
When Stewart was in high school, she babysat the children of Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra.
She earned a bachelor's degree from Barnard College in art, European history, and architectural history.
Originally, Stewart studied chemistry in college, but later switched.
She worked as a stockbroker for a boutique firm.
She worked on Wall Street until 1972.
Julia Child got her into cooking.
Martha Stewart told Maclean's, "The original teacher for me was Julia Child. I got to meet her several times and work with her. She got me interested in haute cuisine. I cooked every single recipe in her two big volumes of 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking.'"
She dated Sir Anthony Hopkins for a while, but broke up with him because she couldn't stop thinking of him as Hannibal Lecter.
She confirmed this to NPR, adding, "I went out to dinner with him and then I went back and I saw his piano. He plays a piano and he has a lovely house. And I wanted to invite him to my house in Maine. I have this big old house in Maine. And I kept thinking, I don't know if I can do that."
She has worked in almost every kind of media.
She's had a hand in television, magazines, books, radio, digital content, mass-market homeware production, food wares, real estate, and more.
She was America's first self-made female billionaire.
On the day her company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, launched its initial public offering in 2000, the stock tripled in value before closing, and Martha Stewart not only became an instant billionaire, but America's first self-made female billionaire.
At one point, she owned eight houses.
At the time, she had two Manhattan apartments, her Turkey Hill home in Westport, Connecticut, two houses in the Hamptons, a 153-acre farm in Bedford, New York, and the famous Maine estate, Skylands.
She was convicted of three felony charges in 2004.
In 2004, she spent five months in a minimum security prison for lying about a stock sale. This was followed by five months of home confinement.
She said she only sleeps four hours a night.
Stewart likes to stay up at night watching late-night TV programs, then still likes to get up early.
In addition, her work ethic keeps her going through all hours of the day. She told WebMD, "It's an exhausting lifestyle, and I always say sleep can go. It's not important to me right now."
She has several interesting eating habits, such as drinking buttermilk straight from the carton.
A few of Stewart's guilty pleasures include eating a slice of American cheese, pickled herring, and liverwurst.
She was named one of "America's Top 25 Most Influential People" AND one of the "50 Most Beautiful People in the World" in the same year.
In 1996, Time magazine listed Martha Stewart as one of "America's Top 25 Most Influential People," and People magazine listed her as one of the "50 Most Beautiful People in the World."
By this time, she had released her first book and had her own TV show, "Martha Stewart Living."
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