Martha Stewarts new Turkey Hill collection, named after her Westport home, drew much interest at the International Home Furnishings Market in High Point, N.C.

A Knight-Ridder Tribune columnist reporting from the show said after making her furniture debut last year with a 250-piece line for Bernhardt Furniture, StewartҒs new 115-piece collection includes two bedroom, two dining room and 10 home-office pieces.
One of our favorites from the new collection is Irvington, a nickel-plated bed ($1,280 for queen size) that shines like mercury glass,Ӕ the report said.  It reflects the colors of the room and was shown with a mahogany dresser and chests, making for an inspiring study in contrasts.Ӕ

The Turkey Hill collection celebrates easy, comfortable living, where rooms are multifunctional and suited for various decorating options,Ӕ according to a Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia announcement of the new collection.

The inspiration for the collection is an 1805 farmhouse in historic Westport, Connecticut, which has been Martha Stewart’s home for more than 30 years.Ӕ

It added that traditional pieces have been updated in striking materials, rich colors, and soft, comfortable fabrics that enhance gathering places and workspaces alike. ӓ

“With our new Turkey Hill collection, consumers can enjoy modern interpretations of classic and traditional furniture styles that offer tremendous functionality and unlimited decorating possibilities,”  Stewart said in the announcement.

“Using beautiful, distinctive and practical materials—from lush upholstery fabrics to polished nickel finishes and porcelain enamel surfaces—we offer the homemaker an eclectic collection of furniture that works in any room in any home.”

The AP reported Stewart was present to show the collection to industry buyers and told them she was attached not only to her Westport home, but other properties she owns elsewhere.

“Some people like to collect paintings or dogs,” Stewart said. “I collect houses. It’s also because I can’t sell any of them, because it’s just too painful.”

The new collection will be available to customers at furniture retailers nationwide in April 2004.

Westporter Martha Stewart says she sometimes has a bad temper. But in an ABC News interview airing Friday she insists she is innocent and should not be lumped with corporate fraud cases like Enron and WorldCom.
“What I did was not against the rules,” Stewart told ABC’s Barbara Walters in a “20/20” interview, excerpts of which were released by the network today.

Martha Stewart chats with Barbara Walters. ABCNews.com photo

Asked whether she ever thought she would be considered a corporate criminal, mentioned in the same breath as Enron and WorldCom, Stewart said: “Absolutely not, and I certainly don’t belong in that category.”
Stewart goes on trial Jan. 12 on charges she obstructed justice and lied to investigators about her sale of ImClone Systems stock on Dec. 27, 2001.
In the interview, Stewart said she “sometimes, but not always” has a bad temper and can occasionally be insensitive and driven. But she said she does not know why some of the public does not like her.
“Those traits and that behavior, if it were applied to a man, would be admirable. Applied to a woman, you know, she’s a ‘beetch,”’ Stewart said, according to the ABC transcript.
“The people you think hate me don’t know me,” she tells Walters, “I don’t know why people don’t like me. I’m not perfect.
“The perception that I am perfect I think got kind of mixed up with the idea that what we’re trying to teach is the best possible standard out there. So, if we’re going to make a cake, Barbara, my cake can’t be a flop. People won’t watch my show if I make a flop. I’m not a comedy show. I’m a how-to show.”
The excerpts were released as Manhattan federal prosecutors filed court papers urging the judge overseeing the case to preserve all five counts in the criminal indictment of Stewart returned in June.
Stewart had asked U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum to dismiss an obstruction-of-justice charge and a securities fraud charge that accused Stewart of deceiving her shareholders when she spoke about the investigation last year.
The prosecutors said Stewart’s motion to dismiss the securities fraud count was “frivolous,” was without legal precedent and “flies in the face of common sense.”

A Westport cancer survivor burst into tears in a New York courtroom today when she testified that Rosie O’Donnell had suggested she was lying about goings-on at her now-defunct magazine and told her that liars get cancer.

Cindy Spengler, a Hillspoint Road resident who was head of marketing at the glossy monthly, said O’Donnell made the remark after a meeting to discuss the magazine’s problems, according to an AP report.

Spengler said O’Donnell called and told her that her silence in the meeting was tantamount to lying.

“You know what happens to people who lie,” the witness quoted O’Donnell as saying. “They get sick and they get cancer. If they keep lying, they get it again.”

Spengler testified in Manhattan’s State Supreme Court, where O’Donnell and “Rosie” publisher Gruner+Jahr USA are suing each other for breach of contract.

She told O’Donnell, “Your mother died of breast cancer. Was she lying?”

“Yes,” Spengler quoted the entertainer as replying.

O’Donnell said her mother had lied about a “childhood incident” involving the entertainer, according to the testimony.

O’Donnell’s publicist, Cindi Berger, said Spengler was talking about lies the actress’ mother told about O’Donnell being molested by a male relative as a child. She refused to give details, but said the incident is in “Find Me,” her autobiography.

Berger said O’Donnell later apologized for the remark to Spengler, who testified that she herself had survived breast cancer. Spengler is now a G+J marketing vice president.

Westporters Paul Newman and A. E. Hotchner almost opened a restaurant in their hometown instead of starting Newmans Own two decades ago. And charities would have been millions poorer.

ThatҒs one of the tales from a new book the actor and writer have authored about their successful food venture and highlighted in this weeks Newsweek.

Called ғShameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good, the book tells how the two became accidental entrepreneurs and launched a company that now sells dressing, pasta sauce, popcorn and more in eight countries, all to the benefit of charities.

They were interviewed by NewsweekԒs Jennifer Barrett.

Excerpt:
   
      Barrett: Why write this book now?
      Newman: Well, were passing one landmark. [This month] weҒll be giving away our 150 millionth dollar. So, a lot of the book people have asked us to do some kind of history about this business.
     
      Youve been quoted as saying, ғThere are three rules for doing businessfortunately, we donגt know any of them.
      Hotchner: Actually, my favorite is: ԓIt is useless to put on the brakes when youre upside down.Ҕ
      Newman: The one I like best is, When things look darkest then they go black.Ӕ 
   
      You mention in the book that you originally intended to open a restaurant in Westport, Conn., called Newmans Own, but were talked out of it by a former restaurant owner. Any thoughts still about opening a restaurant?
      Newman: We can barely handle what weҒve got.
      Hotchner: How close were we then?
      Newman: I dont think we were more than 28 percent there.
      Hotchner: [Laughs] Well, we are never more than 28 percent there. Seriously, if there had been a really good location, we might have done the restaurant instead of all of this.

Todays Wall Street Journal cites the family of Ed Mitchell in a story about baby boomers, faced with aging parents, scrambling against time to make a permanent record of the family lore.

But instead of picking up a video camera and firing off a list of questions, the newspaper says some boomers are hiring production companies to turn these tales into glossy documentaries.

Excerpt: ғEd Mitchell, who started a clothing store in Westport, Conn., back in the 1958, just finished appearing in the movie version of his life, Second to None: We Started with Three Suits; The Ed Mitchell Story.ђ

His family hired Reel Biography to make the film, as a tribute to the 98-year-old family patriarch.

ӓA crew of four spent two days taking footage of the shop and interviewing Mr. Mitchell’s family, friends and customers. The result was two videos, 10-minute and 30-minute versions.

Filming for the ӑSecond to None had some of the trappings of a Hollywood shoot, from the makeup and hair touchups to the tedious set arranging.

ғAt one session, Mr. Mitchell’s two sons, Bill and Jack, redo again and again what will be the introduction to the film.

Take one: Bill stumbles over his words. Take 2: The cameraman tells Bill he is smacking the microphone with his gesticulations, ruining the sound.

ӓTake 3: The more gregarious Bill hogs the spotlight. We want Jack to say something too,Ғ the producer says. Take 4: They nail it. It is beyond words and my capacity to thank you, Dad,ђ Bill begins.

Martha Stewart won a legal victory today with a federal court judge ruling that prosecutors may not use an e-mail she wrote to her lawyer last year as evidence at her forthcoming trial on insider trading-related charges.

U.S. District Court Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum ruled the Westport resident did not waive the e-mail’s protected status when she forwarded it to her daughter, Alexis, a day after sending it to her attorney.

The e-mail, dated June 23, 2002, contains Stewart’s account of why she sold ImClone Systems stock in late 2001. The sale was under investigation in 2002, and Stewart was later indicted on five criminal counts.

A federal prosecutor came across the e-mail earlier this year in preparation for Stewart’s trial, scheduled for Jan. 12, and asked the judge to clarify whether it could be used as evidence.

Cedarbaum ruled the e-mail deserved the legal protection of attorney work product —a designation that means the government cannot use it as evidence at her trial.

The judge said the e-mail does not disclose Stewart’s legal strategy, but she rejected the government’s argument that the e-mail “would have taken the same form if created for a nonlitigation purpose.”

In an affidavit, Stewart called her daughter “the closest person in the world to me.”

“She is a valued confidante and counselor to me,” Stewart said. “In sharing the e-mail with her, I knew that she would keep its content strictly confidential.”

The government says Stewart sold ImClone shares on Dec. 27, 2001, because she was tipped that the family of ImClone founder Sam Waksal, a Stewart friend, was trying to sell its shares.

Martha Stewart won a legal victory today with a federal court judge ruling that prosecutors may not use an e-mail she wrote to her lawyer last year as evidence at her forthcoming trial on insider trading-related charges.

U.S. District Court Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum ruled the Westport resident did not waive the e-mail’s protected status when she forwarded it to her daughter, Alexis, a day after sending it to her attorney.

The e-mail, dated June 23, 2002, contains Stewart’s account of why she sold ImClone Systems stock in late 2001. The sale was under investigation in 2002, and Stewart was later indicted on five criminal counts.

A federal prosecutor came across the e-mail earlier this year in preparation for Stewart’s trial, scheduled for Jan. 12, and asked the judge to clarify whether it could be used as evidence.

Cedarbaum ruled the e-mail deserved the legal protection of attorney work product —a designation that means the government cannot use it as evidence at her trial.

The judge said the e-mail does not disclose Stewart’s legal strategy, but she rejected the government’s argument that the e-mail “would have taken the same form if created for a nonlitigation purpose.”

In an affidavit, Stewart called her daughter “the closest person in the world to me.”

“She is a valued confidante and counselor to me,” Stewart said. “In sharing the e-mail with her, I knew that she would keep its content strictly confidential.”

The government says Stewart sold ImClone shares on Dec. 27, 2001, because she was tipped that the family of ImClone founder Sam Waksal, a Stewart friend, was trying to sell its shares.

Barbara Walters interviews Martha Stewart. ABC News.com photo

Westporter Martha Stewart, in her first interview since she was indicted in a stock-trading scandal in June, says she is scared but does not believe she will go to prison.
The comments, released today by ABC News, came in an interview conducted over the weekend by Barbara Walters that will air in November, two months before Stewart’s scheduled trial.
“Who wouldn’t be scared?” Stewart said, according to the ABC excerpt. “Of course I’m scared. The last place I would ever want to go is prison. And I don’t think I will be going to prison, though.”
ABC did not release further excerpts or say where the interview took place.