Marvelous Martha Stewart Trivia Quiz

Answer: Martha Helen Kostyra

Hoxha is a common Albanian surname, Gruber an Austrian surname meaning 'miner', and Hansen a Norwegian surname. Martha Stewart was born in New Jersey in August 3, 1941, and her parents were Edward Kostyra and Martha Ruszowski Kostyra. She reportedly learned how to sew and cook from her mother, a teacher.

Her father, a pharmaceutical salesman, taught her how to garden. As it so happened, the pharmaceutical industry would indirectly cause her quite a bit of hassle later on in life.

Answer: Architectural history

Martha had a wide range of interests - whilst she was studying for her degree, she did some modelling on the side to pay the bills. She'd originally planned to study chemistry, but changed her mind to art, and ultimately history and architectural history.

She achieved the double major at Barnard College, a women's college founded since affiliated Columbia University originally restricted women from entry. It was during this period that she first met Andrew Stewart, her husband-to-be who was finishing a law degree at Yale University.

Answer: Stockbroker

She initially kept up with the modelling, but eventually wanted more out of life. Her father-in-law was a stockbroker - someone who buys and sells stocks and other securities for clients - and so she set her eyes on securing the job for herself. In 1967, two years after graduation she joined the Pearlberg, Monness, Williams & Sidel broker-dealer: at her best she earned over $130,000 a year. Both modelling and stockbroking were useful in her businesses: modelling gave her experience with presentation, where the stockbroker job educated her on some of the economic aspects of business.

Answer: Catering

'Entertaining' was a cookbook full of hundreds of recipes and colour-photographs, many from parties she had hosted. Martha had founded the thriving catering business with her friend Norma Collier. She caught the eye of Alan Mirken, a publisher for whom her group had been contracted to host a party.

He encouraged her to create the cookbook. It was the first of many successful book titles and was perhaps the first big stepping stone for her becoming a public figure in the US.

Answer: Martha Stewart Living

As Martha might say, it's a good thing. The show ran in some form between 1993 and 2004. It typically took place in her kitchen or one of her arts and crafts rooms. One of the reasons her name is on so many products is because she fought for it: Martha wanted further media tie-ins with her magazine whereas Time Warner - her publisher at the time - didn't approve.

In 1997 she was able to buy them out in the process of consolidating her brand assets into the Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia company. By 1999, this company had made her into the first self-made female billionaire, albeit a short-lived one.

Answer: Anthony Hopkins

She had separated from Andrew Stewart in 1987 and officially divorced in 1990, though keeping the surname. They'd had one child together, Alexis, who'd joked that Martha would make her wrap her own Christmas presents in her light-hearted book 'Whateverland: Learning to Live Here'. Regarding Anthony Hopkins, things seemed to be going fine until she'd decided to rewatch 'The Silence of the Lambs'. On the 'Howard Stern Show', she expressed fear of him, based on his character: "Do you want someone eating your brain while you are sitting in your beautiful dining room in Maine?".

Answer: Insider trading

The accusations made were that she had, in 2001, sold all of her stocks in pharmaceutical company ImClone, two days before its primary product had been rejected by the FDA. Sam Waksal, the CEO at the time, had also sold his $5m share prior to the announcement.

Whilst it was easy to prove his wrong-doing, the case still had to be made with evidence that Martha had acted on nonpublic insider information to make the trade to avoid the loss in the dropped value of the shares. Martha reportedly didn't know about the FDA decision, but did know via a broker who had worked with Sam Waksal that he had planned to sell his share. Ironically, rather than the insider trading stuff, her jail sentence ended up being related to conspiracy, obstruction of justice and a number of false statements made during the trial.

The case was particularly notorious, but one fun quirk is that the money involved in Martha's case wasn't massive: in 2006 she paid back three times the amount of money she had avoided losing on the stocks, adding up to just $195,000.

Answer: The Apprentice

Unfortunately, it was a case of: "Martha, you're fired". The show was not well-received, having been criticised for being derivative of the main show. As such, it only lasted for one season. It followed a similar format to Trump's 'Apprentice' - it had two teams compete against one another, two advisors who would observe the teams and give Martha feedback, the boardroom deliberation and then the (more kindly) firing sequence.

Answer: Snoop Dogg

Although Martha has stated admiration for Eminem, it was Snoop who she'd had the friendship with. The show was known as 'Martha & Snoop's Potluck Dinner Party': in the first season they had cooking events which united a diverse array of celebrities under the simple pleasure of enjoying a good meal.

Their first televised encounter was in 'The Martha Stewart Show' in 2008, where she taught him how to make mashed potato. He appeared on the show again a year later, where they made brownies, both euphemistically referring to the likely inclusion of marijuana were they not on a primetime television show.

Answer: Animals

Martha has owned a particularly wide array of animals and is a self-proclaimed animal lover. Some have been pets, like cats and dogs, but she's also owned many farm animals like horses and chickens. She's also technically created many animals of her own using her arts and crafts materials.

When she was in jail, she helped PETA create a video protesting the use of animal furs. One of her dogs, a Chow Chow called Ghenghis (sic) Khan, won the Best of Breed in the 2012 Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.