BFCA Member Profile

Burt Shapiro

Primary Outlet:
Formerly WBJC-FM
Biography:
Although I had a youthful crush on Doris Day (from Calamity Jane), my film-going experiences really began with the wide-eyed terror watching Rear Window. It wasn’t until Perry Mason that I could watch Raymond Burr again. Then, in succession, I was uprooted from ”entertainment” to “another level” with The Bridge on the River Kwai, Tiger Bay, the original Thirty-Nine Steps, North by Northwest, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Psycho and The Apartment before I unearthed the unseen trove of foreign language films with Two Women and Forbidden Games. While going to the University of Maryland, my third major was motoring to the Circle Theatre and the Janus (on Sunday mornings) until I headed for the brilliant future in New York. After two years of intense movie going, I attended NYU graduate school of Cinema Studies, got everything for my Masters, which I finally received from Johns Hopkins University. I still search for great movie experiences as I had when I was nine, seventeen, twenty-five and now, every once in a while, it happens unpredictably. I have been at WBJC-FM (public radio classical music at 91.5) where I’ve hosted jazz and classical and still edit the program guide (with the endless commas and semi-colons) and share my enthusiasm for the art of cinema with listeners in the Baltimore-Washington metro area, and beyond.