26 Classic Photos of a Younger Martha Stewart Before She Was a Way of life Icon

Before her identify turned a byword for “good taste,” Martha Stewart was born Martha Kostyra, the oldest daughter of six youngsters in a well-to-do Polish Catholic household. Raised in Nutley, New Jersey, she displayed an entrepreneurial knack from an early age: A ten-year previous Martha booked her first paid gig by planning birthday events for the children in her neighborhood. She started modeling as a youngster, incomes $50 an hour to look in advert campaigns for the likes of Chanel and Tareyton cigarettes. With her 5’9” body and knockout magnificence, Stewart’s modeling portfolio radiates the identical mixture of chilly attraction and playful sensuality that will later outline her whole model.

But it might take a while earlier than Stewart turned recognized, as David Letterman as soon as referred to her, because the “James Brown of home entertaining.” Stewart modeled into her early twenties, largely as a strategy to complement her scholarship cash at Barnard College. After graduating with a level in architectural historical past, she married Yale Law scholar Andy Stewart, had a daughter, Alexis, in 1965, and labored on Wall Street as the one feminine stockbroker at her agency. “The job taught me so much about what it takes to build a real business, a real company—a meaningful and useful enterprise,” Stewart later recalled. “Yet it was not until I left Wall Street that I discovered my true entrepreneurial bent. I loved ideas. I loved building. I loved creating….and I loved making money as a result.”

Stewart in Better Home & Gardens, June 1977

Photo: Susan Wood