Martha Washington. I think she's done herself a disservice in history with a little cap, you know? She looks like a namby-pamby little grandmotherly type, but she turned out to be a very strong woman.

Martha's Vineyard is a very strange place, racially speaking. Or maybe it's the way things could be if everyone had a bit more money and job security and status and could meet on equal enough footing.

It took 17 years to get 'Rambling Rose' made from the time Calder Willingham wrote the script adapted from his novel. Ed Scherick, the producer, was interested in it. Martha Coolidge was interested in directing it.

I think of my parents as a single unit, and it's interesting because they shared so much, and they were totally opposite. My mother, a Martha Graham dancer, had a classical background; my father had a back-porch background.

This and many others only confirmed me in the opinion, planted when I saw the sale of Martha Ann, and growing steadily thereafter, that slavery was an accursed business, and that the sooner my people were relieved of it, the better.

I certainly know women who had children, quit their jobs, and still have full-time nannies. That's who these women are: Even to the detriment of their own relationship with their kids, they want to appear perfect Martha Stewart moms.

I had a really good time with Martha Stewart, who also is somebody I really admire a lot. I've learned a lot from her and I think all of America has, about attention to detail and using fresh ingredients and making things beautiful and special.

The first year I was in New York, I met Martha Graham. She said, 'Well, Mr. Wilson, what do you want to do in life?' I was 21 years old, and I said, 'I have no idea.' And she said, 'If you work long enough and hard enough, you'll find something.'

We got Martha Stewart legitimizing homemaking for her generation, and then there's this return to being interested in all things home, lifestyle, and food again. I think this generation is less about the frills and more about the flavor of things.

When I was 12 years old, someone took me to see Martha Graham. It was nothing like what I thought of as serious dancing and even then I knew I was having a great experience. It was as if somebody was moving through space like no one ever did before.

I knew from an online search that the Wisconsin State Historical Society, on the vast University of Wisconsin campus, held the papers of Sigrid Schultz, a spunky correspondent for the 'Chicago Tribune' who became one of Martha Dodd's friends in Berlin.

I admire but don't envy people who have children and also have big, wonderful perfect houses. Maybe Martha Stewart could do it; to me those two things aren't compatible, but I know our children will grow up with a feeling that home is a place of comfort.

Martha Stewart convinced me to have a business. She sometimes takes a very personal interest, and she kept saying, 'You have to open your own business,' and gave me chances. She took my cakes on 'The Oprah Winfrey Show.' I met a lot of people through her.

I started my own business because my parents had no dowry for me, and I was worried. I ran it from their Martha Vineyard's summer house. I baby-sat for a 14-year-old boy all summer and was giving him time-outs, even though I was two years younger than him.

I was at our beautiful home in Martha's Vineyard, near Boston, sitting on the porch looking at the ocean when I got a phone called and was asked, 'Would I like to do 'CSI'?' A week later, I'm at a coroner's office in Las Vegas, participating in a quadruple autopsy.

The only thing Martha and I have in common is that we both used to model. Martha Stewart is extremely talented. Her designs are picture perfect. Our philosophy is life is messy, and rather than being afraid of those messes we design products that work the way we live.

At some point, I stumbled across my two main protagonists: William E. Dodd, a mild-mannered professor of history picked by Roosevelt to be America's first ambassador to Nazi Germany, and Dodd's comely and rather wild daughter, Martha, who at first was enthralled with the so-called Nazi revolution.

I am often asked the question: 'What is your favorite type of food?' Although I always answer Japanese, the real response should be and is pierogi, the delectable Polish dumplings that my mother, Big Martha, made so well in many incarnations: potato, sweet cabbage, blueberry, peach, plum, and apricot.

When I went through the Simpson case, I was a cop. Then I was a good cop. Then I was a bad cop. Then I had the media camped out in front of my house when I retired. Then, you know, I am the evilest thing on the planet. Then I write a few books, and then I start getting involved, like the Martha Moxley case.

I was a contestant on 'The Apprentice: Martha Stewart' and more than her telling me I learned from her that authenticity is key. She had a huge issue with a contestant using the phrase 'fake it 'til you make it' and fired her that same episode. She taught me that you can't fake being a master of your craft.

My first job was on Broadway. Then I went into the Navy. When I came out of the Navy, I went back to Broadway and a friend of mine, Lauren Bacall, was in Hollywood filming with Humphrey Bogart. She told one of her producers I was great in my play, and he saw it and cast me in 'The Strange Love of Martha Ivers'.

My wife Martha used to call me Ol' Lemon Face because of my facial contortions when I play Lucille. I squeeze my eyes and open my mouth, raise my eyebrows, cock my head and God knows what else. I look like I'm in torture, when in truth, I'm in ecstasy. I don't do it for show. Every fiber of my being is tingling.

Scott Brown may be the last Republican to win a statewide fight in Massachusetts for a very long time. He caught the machine flat-footed in January 2010 when he out-hustled Martha Coakley and stole the Senate seat Ted Kennedy held all those years. And since then, the Democrats haven't lost a single statewide fight.

Lemon curd is one of the first things I remember cooking when I was old enough to use the stove without supervision. I looked up a recipe in my one of my mom's Martha Stewart cookbooks and went to work, stirring anxiously and monitoring closely for signs that the mixture was thickening so as not to curdle the eggs.

The Queen of Crafts herself, Martha Stewart, and I have the same birthday. I prefer to think it's the glue-gun wielding, perfect-tart-producing Martha and not the copper pan-throwing, jail-going Martha. But I suppose if I am going to share a calendar square with some of Martha, I have to share it with all of Martha.

I remember a humorous episode from Bill Clinton's presidency in which his advisers prevailed upon him, one summer before his re-election campaign, to spend his vacation in Montana and Wyoming instead of the usual Martha's Vineyard. The theory was that he'd benefit from hanging out someplace a little more down to earth.

Something I didn't even know was on my bucket list has been achieved. I have cooked Thanksgiving dinner with Martha Stewart. I vow to follow the gospel of her teachings and do my very best in the remarkably less glamorous kitchen of my own home... without the luxury of magically appearing prep bowls filled by a staff of sous chefs.

Corporate America was hurling offers at her. Thinking even bigger, wanting even more, she had dreams of starting a Martha Stewart magazine and starring in her own regularly scheduled Martha Stewart television show. Martha saw herself as Betty Crocker, Julia Child, Miss Manners, Emily Post, and Rupert Murdoch all rolled into one juicy pie.

Martha Graham, along with George Balanchine, is one of the two commanding figures in 20th-century American dance. For those much younger than I am, her genius as a performer will have to be taken on faith - and on the always-suspect evidence of film. What will last, if things go well, is her genius as a choreographer, as a woman of the theater.

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