CBS announced today that its on-again, off-again movie about Martha Stewart is back on and timed to take advantage of a heavy dose of Martha planned for the fall.
CBS originally planned to air the unauthorized, made-for-television movie about Stewart’s rise-and-fall during last month’s crucial end-of-season ratings period.
But the network pulled “Martha: Behind Bars” in April, a month after Stewart was released from a minimum-security prison for women in West Virginia.
Stewart still maintains a home in Westport (although it is rumored to be on the market) as well as a studio here but is spending her house arrest term at her estate in Bedford, N.Y. She will complete her sentence in early August.
Stewart, 63, served five months at the Alderson prison camp following her conviction in March 2004 on criminal charges related to a personal stock sale.
At the time that CBS yanked the Stewart film, industry observers speculated that executives at the Viacom unit decided against rushing out the Cybill Shepherd-starring movie and opted instead to wait until the fall, when Stewart is expected to become once again a center of media attention, CNN reported.
Stewart is scheduled to star in two new television shows starting in September. She will host a daily talk show on NBC starting Sept. 12 and will appear later in a prime time spinoff of “The Apprentice” reality program.
In addition to a television campaign, Stewart is expected to appear on magazine covers and will host segments of an around-the-clock radio channel that Martha Stewart Living will produce for Sirius Satellite Radio later in the year.
“Martha: Behind Bars” is the second unauthorized drama about Stewart.
Shepherd, who also played the lifestyle celebrity in the first movie, will portray Stewart from the day her company went public in October 1999 to her release from prison in March.
