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    Netflix’s Martha Stewart Documentary Says She Was the Original Influencer. Was She?

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    The new Netflix documentary “Martha” examines the homemaking diva’s illustrious, and complicated, career and personal life.“Martha,” a new documentary now on Netflix, offers a candid portrait of the rise and fall (and rebirth?) of the homemaker extraordinaire, who last year, at 81, appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated.The film, by R.J. Cutler, touches on Ms. Stewart’s troubled childhood, troubled marriage, time on Wall Street and where everything really began: the idyllic Connecticut countryside where she renovated a farmhouse. It looks at how a high-end catering business made her a media mogul with her own magazine, television show and brand of Kmart sheets. And it digs into her highly publicized trial, conviction and prison time.In an edited conversation, members of the Styles staff — Vanessa Friedman, Madison Malone Kircher and Jacob Gallagher — and James B. Stewart, a business reporter and columnist whose book “Tangled Webs” examined the insider trading probe that incriminated Ms. Stewart, discussed the documentary and the life of a woman who built a man’s empire on being the ultimate homemaker.MADISON MALONE KIRCHER: I realized how little I actually knew about a woman who was basically a canonized saint in my house growing up. Which is to say I was hooked!JAMES STEWART: I liked the film a lot. Her body language and expressions were so revealing. She looked very uncomfortable most of the time. But it was very kind to her.VANESSA FRIEDMAN: I found watching the film especially interesting in the context of the election, and the complicated feelings around women — particularly, powerful, successful women. Because it did reveal very complicated feelings about Martha.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Martha Stewart Has ‘Never-Ending Curiosity’ (And a Few Regrets.)

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      This year I made time to grow the best vegetables, monster vegetables, that I’ve ever grown in my life. My houses are never done. And I’m writing my autobiography. That’s the scariest project for me because I don’t really like everything about myself — where I’ve been, what I’ve done.I get up at 6:30 every morning. My housekeeper comes at 7, and I can’t be in bed when she arrives. That would be very embarrassing. I’m a bad sleeper, in any case. At times I’d rather watch a documentary. Other times, I might be anxious, not for me but for my grandchildren. If I wake in the night, I read the headlines to make sure we’re not being bombed.1976Ms. Stewart chopping vegetables in her kitchen.Susan Wood/Getty Images1980At their Connecticut home, with her then-husband, Andy Stewart.Arthur Schatz/Getty Images1982Her first book, “Entertaining,” is published. 1997On “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.”Margaret Norton/NBCU Photo Bank, via Getty Images2002Ms. Stewart’s merchandise on display at K-Mart.Carlos Osorio/Associated Press2004After being sentenced to federal prison for insider trading.Mario Tama/Getty Images2005Ms. Stewart appealed her conviction and was released.Mario Tama/Getty Images2005Speaking to the staff of her magazine Martha Stewart Living.Timothy A. Clary/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images2015Ms. Stewart’s friendship with Snoop Dogg has endured for over a decade, leading to several jobs together, including co-hosting a cooking show.Christopher Polk/Getty Images2020Ms. Stewart founded a new line of CBD products.Celeste Sloman for The New York Times2023Showing off her cover of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit edition.Noam Galai/Getty ImagesMaybe a little uncertainty can help fuel ambition. When I left my job on Wall Street, I knew I had to create a career for myself. I became a caterer, catering parties every night. Still I thought, “Will there come a time when my granddaughter — she’s 12 — is asked, “What did grandma do?” And all she can say is “Oh, she made parties for people.” I thought, “I have to do something more than this.” That was in the 1980s, when I wrote my first book, the one on entertaining.At that time I wasn’t keeping my eye on the home, even though I was known as a homemaker. It wasn’t enough for a marriage. Maybe I regret not having had more children. Maybe I regret that my marriage ended abruptly. We’d been together 27 years. That used to be considered a long time, so when a long marriage ended, it was like somebody died. Maybe I would have liked getting married again. I didn’t, but I don’t mind. Still, I’m curious about what could have been.My never-ending curiosity drives me. Will it stop? That’s never even occurred to me.Current and upcoming projects: Autobiography in progress; an untitled Martha Stewart documentary from R.J. Cutler, who directed “The September Issue,” to stream on Netflix in 2024; a PBS documentary series, “Hope In the Water,” set for broadcast in 2024; a partnership with Samsung for a 2023-2024 advertising campaign; a line of gardening clothes and accessories in collaboration with French Dressing Jeans and Marquee Brands.This interview has been edited and condensed. More

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      After R.B.G. Awards Go to Musk and Murdoch, Justice Ginsburg’s Family Objects

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      The children of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who championed liberal causes and women’s rights, said the choice of recipients this year was an “affront” to the memory of their mother.When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a champion of liberal causes whose advocacy of women’s rights catapulted her to pop culture fame, helped establish a leadership award in 2019, she said she intended to celebrate “women who exemplify human qualities of empathy and humility.”But this year, four of the recipients are men, including Elon Musk, the tech entrepreneur who frequently lobs tirades at perceived critics; Rupert Murdoch, the business magnate whose empire gave rise to conservative media; and Michael Milken, the face of corporate greed in the 1980s who served nearly two years in prison. It has prompted family members and close colleagues of Justice Ginsburg to demand that her name be removed from the honor, commonly called the R.B.G. Award.In a statement, her daughter, Jane C. Ginsburg, a law professor at Columbia University, said the choice of winners this year was “an affront to the memory of our mother.”“The justice’s family wish to make clear that they do not support using their mother’s name to celebrate this year’s slate of awardees, and that the justice’s family has no affiliation with and does not endorse these awards,” Ms. Ginsburg said.Even as he declined to specify any of the recipients who he believed undermined the spirit of the award, Trevor W. Morrison, a former dean of New York University School of Law and one of the justice’s former law clerks, expressed concern that not all of them reflected the justice’s values.“Justice Ginsburg had an abiding commitment to careful, rigorous analysis and to fair-minded engagement with people of opposing views,” he said in a letter addressed to the organization that confers the awards, the Dwight D. Opperman Foundation. “It is difficult to see how the decision to bestow the R.B.G. Award on this year’s slate reflects any appreciation for — or even awareness of — these dimensions of the justice’s legacy.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More