BREAKING NEWS: GRETA VAN SUSTEREN NOT BORN IN APPLETON
“I’ve always told people I was born in Appleton, Wisconsin, but that’s not the case,” Greta Van Susteren confessed. “I was born in Neenah, just a few miles away. It’s no wonder the information on my bio pages is not matched.”
She may not have been born there, but she did go to school there. Van Susteren attended Appleton’s Xavier Catholic High School in the 60s. Van Susteren admits while she was not valedictorian, she was a bit of a hellraiser.
“I was in the lower 50 percent of my high school class, not a super student. But I did lead the class in disciplinary notices, and I was kicked out for a while.”
When she got to the school in 1968, the way some of the disciplinary notices were handed out seemed unfair.
The school had disciplinary notices. If you got three major notices, you were expelled. Kids in class would talk loudly and goof around. You know, high school kids.
“I think I was labeled insolent and insubordinate a lot of times,” she said. “I had a slew of disciplinary notices. We had a new girl come to school from a public high school. She convinced us to walk two blocks to the 7-11 or someplace like that. We bought some cigarettes and candy, then went back to school. We told her it was wrong, but she was no Mother Teresa. When we got back to school, the nuns went completely psychotic. The girl was so bad, to begin with, I guess you’d say a bad influence. She was the one that got off, didn’t get into trouble.”
Her ties to Wisconsin are still deep. Van Susteren owns Stock with the Green Bay Packers, her favorite football team. She’s also good friends with ex-Packer Brett Favre.
“Brett is the most humble person you’ll ever meet. I interviewed him years ago, and we became friends. He told me when people call him Iron Man, he thanks them. But he’ll also remind the person he’s number one in interceptions. I like Wisconsin and Midwestern people, but I never made it down to see the Milwaukee Brewers. The Braves were my team, and then they left for Atlanta. Then there was a big gap in baseball in Milwaukee until the Brewers came in 1970.”
By all accounts, she had a regular, normal childhood. “I had a raccoon named Ringo and a duck named Donald,” she said.
Doesn’t get any more ‘normal’ than that. The only thing missing is a dog named Rover.
As a kid, she took piano lessons. “I wasn’t any good. I spent three years in the same lesson book.”
Van Susteren’s father, Urban, was one-half Dutch, one-quarter German, and one-quarter Luxembourgian ancestry. Her mother, Margery Van Susteren, was born in New York and was of entirely Irish descent.
“My mother would insist I tell people she’s 100-percent Irish. If she were here today, she’d tell me to stop forgetting to comb my hair. She was a very interesting person.”
Born in upstate New York, Margey Van Susteren was orphaned early. She was left with a small inheritance and traveled the world. She was in Germany just before Hitler invaded Poland. She worked at an Air Force base.
Urban was a judge who served under Senator Joseph McCarthy and died in 1989. He later broke with McCarthy. Before becoming a judge, Urban practiced law in Appleton until Van Susteren was in the fifth grade.
She said visiting her dad at work was heavenly.
“I used to go to his office with him at night,” she said. “There were two things at the office I fell in love with. His secretary had an electric typewriter and a dictaphone. I thought those were so cool. There was also a drawer with candy. What kid wouldn’t love that? I thought it was the greatest place in the world. Certainly the best office. I used to sit in the courtroom when he was on the bench. I saw judges as normal people; I was never afraid of them.”
After Xavier, she went to the University of Wisconsin in Madison, majored in economics, and studied hard.
“I sort of decided I wanted to become a success. I didn’t want to spend my life buying cigarettes at the 7-11. When I got to law school at Georgetown, I got ‘Potomac Fever’ and never left. I interned for Gaylord Nelson when I was at Georgia Law school. Been there ever since.”
*In the middle of the call, we got disconnected. We agreed there should be an International rule about who calls who back. The one who disconnected the call or the one who did not. “I disconnected that one,” Van Susteren said. She’s the lawyer, so I had no choice but to listen.
At Madison, the grades improved dramatically. “I could only go up from high school. I found college difficult, probably because of my doing so poorly in high school. Law school was easy, and I loved it. Instead of taking a bunch of classes I had no interest in, I was taking classes on one topic I loved. I went back and got a second law degree, and that was unusual for a woman back then. Some go back for a second degree, and it doesn’t really help their career. I know some people who went back to Harvard to get a second degree when they wanted to land new deals in their careers.”
Van Susteren said she knew she wanted to go to Georgetown because it was in Washington D.C., where the laws were made. The Supreme Court.
“I think law school was a natural for me. I have an older sister Lise who is a doctor, and an older brother, who is a journalist. I think my dad wanted a lawyer in the family. My brother Dirk is very cerebral. He wrote for the Providence Journal. He has 30 years of journalism experience and has spent most of his career in New England. He also wrote for UPI.”
In fourth grade, she wanted to be William Proxmire, the longest-serving Senator from Wisconsin.
“I used to go door to door and get signatures for Johnny Burns. I was young, maybe first grade, maybe a little older. Johnny Burns started sending me pamphlets about Washington, D.C. It made me very happy. I was young, but in those days, we didn’t worry too much about pedophiles.”
Van Susteren is one of the few anchors who can say they have been employed by CNN and MSNBC and hosted On The Record for 14 years.
“When I left Fox in 2016 after 14 years, they were blowing up. I had a good time there.”
Before Fox News, she hosted CNN’s primetime news and analysis program, The Point with Greta Van Susteren. She also co-hosted the network’s daily legal analysis show, Burden of Proof.
Why does she think CNN thought she’d be a good addition? It’s not as complex as you might think. “I had some intellect, and I was available. CNN was the Chicken Little network. But it was exciting and fun.”
Her first big story was covering the William Kennedy Smith rape case in Palm Beach in 1991.
“It made sense to have a woman working that case. People may have sensed it as fair. I had tried cases like Kennedy’s. I covered Marion Berry with his cocaine busts. I think they liked those credentials.”
Six months after she left Fox, there was a brief stint at MSNBC.
“That was a total disaster for me,” Van Susteren said.
After MSNBC, she did some work for Voice of America on a pro-bono basis.
Then, in May 2022, it was announced that Van Susteren would begin hosting The Record with Greta Van Susteren on Newsmax. The show started in June.
“I’ve known Chris Ruddy for years,” Van Susteren said. He’s the one who talked me into coming to Newsmax. “I missed the daily cable news,” she said. “It’s an entirely different breed. Chris Ruddy said, ‘why don’t you come work with us?’ There’s nothing like live news to get the adrenaline going. In recent years everything has been taped.”
“It’s the same show I’ve done for 25 years from a legal lens. Facts matter. I have taken evidence very seriously since law school.”
Van Susteren appeared regularly on CNN as a legal analyst. This led to her stint as CNN’s Burden of Proof and The Point co-host.
“My strengths are two-fold. I love to learn as I know I’m not the smartest person in the room. Second, I’m extremely curious. I like when people convince me of something or help me understand when I’m looking at something short-sided.”
Van Susteren said all things are evolving. “I know some people believe election fraud might be real. But no facts have changed my mind. Hosts and news people must be trusted as opposed to following. I’m so busy with my show, I don’t have time to listen or watch other hosts or journalists. I’m not trying to sound like a snob. I know all these people. I know how they are going to approach a topic, how they will handle it. I like a lot of them but don’t agree with them all the time.”
She never planned on being on television.
“I graduated law school, then hung out a shingle. I was handling cases on rape and murder. Then I became an adjunct professor at Georgetown from 1983-87. That’s when CNN came calling, and I never left. When I graduated law school, the only lawyer on TV was Perry Mason.”
“I think everyone appreciates how hard television news is, and I think they have to want it. I may have been one of the first to go through a particular door, but I don’t see myself as an inspiration to young journalists.
“My husband, John Coale, is a very successful lawyer. He was the lead attorney in the tobacco litigation when they said it couldn’t be won.”
The couple were married in 1979. They don’t belong to a golf club. They don’t even play Scrabble.
“We like long hours and being productive. I’m lucky. I’ve traveled the world, been to Africa and Western Europe. I’ve been to Ukraine twice in the last four months.”
From high school delinquency to Georgetown law to national media, it has been an incredible journey for the woman from Appleton…I mean, Neenah.
Jim Cryns writes features for Barrett News Media. He has spent time in radio as a reporter for WTMJ, and has served as an author and former writer for the Milwaukee Brewers. To touch base or pick up a copy of his new book: Talk To Me – Profiles on News Talkers and Media Leaders From Top 50 Markets, log on to Amazon or shoot Jim an email at jimcryns3_zhd@indeedemail.com.
