A Salute To Martha Stewart

Martha Stewart, the ultimate domestic diva, is turning 70! To mark her birthday, we’re taking a look at some memorable moments in her legendary career:

Her First Parties

While she was in college, Martha started babysiitting Mickey Mantle’s four boys under the age of ten. The baseball legend’s wife, Merlyn, recalled that Martha organized birthday parties for the kids. “They would behave for Martha,” Merlyn said. And who wouldn’t, in return for a cupcake or two?

Changing Majors Ultimately, Martha ended up majoring in architectural history at Barnard. At first, though, she studied chemistry. Had she stuck with that, we’re sure that laboratories across the country would now have some really marvelous curtains.

End Of A Marriage Martha married attorney Andy Stewart, who shared her passion for rehabbing houses. In fact, the couple redid the now-famous Turkey Hill farm. But after a 29-year union, the marriage ended in 1991, and by all accounts it was a bitter one. Andy Stewart got an order preventing Martha from ever talking about it, and Martha’s mother said her daughter was “wounded” by the ordeal. The couple have one daughter, Alexis (with Martha in photo).

Birth Of A Brand In 1990, Martha debuted Martha Stewart Living as a quarterly. The magazine, done in a partnership with Time Inc., became an overnight success story. In 1997, Martha bought out most of Time Inc.’s stake in the magazine for a reported $2 million. Which seems like pocket change these days. The magazine emphasized high-end, beautifully photographed entertainment and craft stories, with accompanying specific instructions on how to make it all happen. At its most successful, Martha Stewart Living sold more than two million copies per month

Lightning Does Strike Twice--And Then Once Again Martha has said she’s been struck three times by lightning—once while standing at a sink, another time while talking on the phone, and a third time while handling “a metal stand.” Talking to an interviewer, she said, “Some people attract electrical things.”

Adventures On Wall Street In 1999, stock in Martha’s expanded empire, known as Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, is offered to the public. The stock opened at $18 a share and immediately shot up to $35.

Uh-Oh Just months after Martha was appointed as a member of the board of the New York Stock Exchange (she was a stockbroker as well as a domestic genius), Congress began investigating whether she had engaged in insider trading by selling off her stock in a drug company the day before the FDA said it wouldn’t approve the company’s product. During her cooking segment on CBS’s The Early Show, anchor Jane Clayson asked about her legal troubles. “I just want to focus on my salad,” Martha said. If only she had done that several months earlier.

Doing Time Stewart was convicted in 2004 of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators. Trading in Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia was halted on the day of her conviction, and two weeks later she resigned as chief creative officer. Martha was imprisoned from October 2004 to March 2005 at a federal facility in Alderson, West Virginia. No doubt her incarceration was frustrating and humiliating, but it didn’t do the bottom line any harm: While she was in the pen, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia stock went from $11 to $36. After her release, Martha made a tearful return to her company’s offices.

Now What? Stewart will be back on her company’s board of directors this fall, as a five-year ban imposed by federal authorities comes to an end. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia isn’t doing as well as it used to, and differing business strategies – how many licensing deals should we do? Do we create or just endorse –have wracked the company. But that will probably change with Martha’s return. Will she regain her status as a first-name phenomenon? Maybe not, but as told an interviewer for Fortune magazine, “I really cannot be destroyed.” We wouldn’t dare disagree.