Martha Stewart, business maven and cultural legend, looks back in R.J. Cutler's powerful documentary.
Martha Stewart claims an incomparably protean decades-long career, paving a historic path across an unprecedented range of industries. For the first time, she looks back on her storied ups and downs in MARTHA, a documentary from the Emmy-winning director R.J. Cutler (Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry, The September Issue).
With her lifestyle company Martha Stewart Omnimedia, she has thrived in almost every kind of media, writing best-selling books and creating mainstay magazines, hosting Emmy-winning TV, and launching radio programs and a podcast. From homeware lines at major department stores to a burgeoning CBD brand, Stewart’s conquered business venture after business venture, proving there’s nothing she can’t do. “It became clear to me that not only did Martha have an extraordinary story to tell, but she was eager to tell it,” Cutler says. “I knew that the various narratives of her life story had been told, but never from her perspective — never by her.”
The domestic guru possesses unmatched business savvy and attention to detail, but it’s her ability to evolve and her undying curiosity that have rendered Stewart an indelible cultural icon. She continues to defy expectations, as both the first self-made female billionaire and the oldest Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover star. “She’s a remarkable woman who wakes up every day confronting the world with enormous curiosity, vigor, and energy, but she’s also very complicated,” Cutler says. “She’s the woman that you see in the film.”
Here, Queue charts the multitudes of Stewart’s life so far with some of the facts and figures featured in MARTHA.
8
years spent working as a stockbroker, when many trading floor offices didn’t even have women’s bathrooms
100
books written since 1982, 17 of which were New York Times bestsellers
$1,200,000,000
the value of Stewart’s shares of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia after the stock went public
1999
the year Stewart became the first self-made female billionaire
7
magazine titles published under Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, including Martha Stewart Living and Martha Stewart Weddings, starting in 1991
$1,500,000,000
of Kmart’s $36,000,000,000 revenue came from Martha Stewart Everyday products — which span linens, copper pans, cleaning supplies, and more —in 2002
18
Emmy Awards earned by Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia’s portfolio of TV programming
100,000,000,000
impressions of her Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue cover, with which she made history as the oldest cover star at age 81
2,000,000
followers on Instagram and 1,700,000 on TikTok