Who

The stiff-jawed, thoroughly plasticized legal expert hosts On the Record with Greta Van Susteren on the Fox News Channel. She's also a big-time member of the Church of Scientology.

Backstory

The daughter of a Wisconsin judge, Van Susteren moved to Washington, D.C. in the late '70s to attend Georgetown Law. She soon turned to personal injury litigation, and after marrying fellow trial attorney John Coale in the late '80s, she joined his ambulance-chasing law firm where she represented victims of natural disasters, fires, and plane crashes such as the Valujet plane crash of 1996. (For his part, Coale was nicknamed "Bhopal Coale" for zipping off to India to sign up new clients following the 1984 Union Carbide Corp. poison gas leak that killed more than 2,000 people.)

Of course, Van Susteren didn't become a household name until she started appearing on TV. She first stepped into the spotlight covering the William Kennedy Smith trial for CNN in 1991, and became unavoidable during the O.J. Simpson trial a few years later. She went on to host CNN shows like The Point with Greta Van Susteren and Burden of Proof, then in 2002, reportedly frustrated with playing second fiddle to Paula Zahn, she jumped ship and moved to New York to join Fox News. The tabloids had a field day with the many changes Van Susteren made to her appearance before her Fox debut, which included a face lift, blepharoplasty (eye job), and dental implants. ("I'm hoping to make jealous all those guys who wouldn't date me in high school," she said at the time.) She now hosts On the Record with Greta Van Susteren from 10-11 p.m. on weeknights.

In print

In 2003, Van Susteren published My Turn at The Bullypulpit: Straight Talk About The Things That Drive Me Nuts.

For the record

Both Coale and Van Susteren are active members of the Church of Scientology. She's a major donor to the Church, too, although her sizeable donations in the late '90s were reportedly listed under the name "Greta Conway." (Conway is her middle name.) Van Susteren and Coale are tight with a number of other high-profile L. Ron Hubbard fans. Tom Cruise once considered making a movie about Coale's legal exploits. And Coale and Van Susteren's firm represented fellow Scientologist Lisa Marie Presley when she divorced Michael Jackson. Interestingly—particularly in light of Scientology's notorious objection to psychiatry—Van Susteren's sister is the noted Maryland forensic psychiatrist Lise Van Susteren, who ran for Senate in 2005.

Drama

Trolling for legal clients at the site of a natural disaster would likely earn you a scolding on Van Susteren's show these days, but in 1995 the Fox News anchor and her husband were sanctioned by West Virginia's Lawyer Disciplinary Board for "inappropriate solicitation of prospective clients."

Personal

Coale is Van Susteren's first husband. (She's his third wife.) In 2006, the couple purchased a 1,582-square-foot apartment on 48th and Broadway, with a view of Times Square. (It's just steps from Scientology's New York HQ.) The couple now splits their time between NYC, Washington, DC, and Clearwater, Fla., which is where Scientology's "spiritual mecca" is located. They spend weekends aboard the S.S. Sophie, an 80-foot yacht named after Van Susteren's now-deceased spaniel. The boat occasionally docs at the Mattituck marina on Long Island now that Van Susteren and pal/former Ms. editor Elaine Lafferty own the town's Old Mill Inn.