Greta Van Susteren Biography

Greta Van Susteren (born June 11, 1954) is an American commentator and television personality on the Fox News Channel, where she hosts On the Record w/ Greta Van Susteren. A former criminal defense and civil trial lawyer, she appeared as a legal analyst on CNN co-hosting Burden of Proof with Roger Cossack from 1994 to 2002, playing defense attorney to Cossack's prosecutor.

Early life

Van Susteren was born in Appleton, Wisconsin, and is of Dutch, French, Irish, Icelandic and German ancestry on her paternal side. Van Susteren's father, Urban Van Susteren, an elected judge, was a longtime friend of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, and a campaign strategist for him, although Urban later broke with him.

Van Susteren's sister, Lise, is a forensic psychiatrist in Bethesda, Maryland. In 2006, Lise was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. Her brother, Dirk Van Susteren, was a journalist and long-time editor of the Vermont Sunday magazine, jointly published, until folding in 2008, by the Rutland Herald and the Barre-Montpelier-Times Argus.

Career

Van Susteren graduated from Xavier High School in Appleton in 1972 and the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1976, where she studied geography and economics. She later earned a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1979 and prior to the start of her television work returned to Georgetown Law as an adjunct faculty member in addition to her full-time legal career. She was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree from Stetson Law School.

During coverage of the O. J. Simpson murder trial, she appeared regularly on CNN as a legal analyst. This led to her stint as co-host of CNN's Burden of Proof and The Point.

In 2002, Van Susteren switched to the Fox News Channel after a highly publicized contract bidding war. Since then, she has hosted the current affairs show On the Record w/ Greta Van Susteren. In 2012 an orphanage and school opened in Haiti named The Greta Home and Academy, which Greta and her husband helped found alongside Samaritan's Purse.

Personal life

Van Susteren married tort lawyer John P. Coale in 1988. Coale, a self-described "ambulance chaser", became known as "Bhopal Coale" for his solicitation of clients among victims of the Bhopal disaster. He has served as an adviser for Sarah Palin.

Van Susteren and her husband are members of the Church of Scientology.

Since 2006, she has been part owner of a restaurant, the Old Mill Inn, in Mattituck, New York, on the North Fork of Long Island.

In recognition of her Dutch heritage she was asked to assume the role of Honorary Chairperson of the Little Chute Windmill Committee. The windmill, an authentic reproduction of a Dutch one, will be built in Little Chute, Wisconsin, where Van Susteren's family lived for some time.