Justine Shapiro
American actress and film director
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Justine Shapiro (born March 20, 1963) is a South African-born American actress, filmmaker, writer, hostess and producer, who was one of several main hosts of the Pilot Productions travel/adventure series Globe Trekker (also called Pilot Guides in Canada and originally broadcast as Lonely Planet).
Justine Shapiro | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 20, 1963 |
| Occupations | Actress, TV travel host, documentary filmmaker, director, producer, writer |
| Years active | 1992–present |
| Notable credit | Globe Trekker |
| Website | Justine Shapiro profile |
Television and film career
Before hosting Globe Trekker (Pilot Guides), Shapiro appeared in various roles in film and television. Eventually, she was involved in several documentaries including co-production/direction duties on 2001's Promises, which won two 2002 Emmy Awards, for Best Documentary and Outstanding Background Analysis, and was nominated for best Documentary Feature at the 74th Academy Awards.[1][2][3] Promises attempts to humanize the Arab–Israeli conflict by examining it in microcosm, through the eyes of seven Palestinian and Israeli children living in or near the divided city of Jerusalem.[4]
She produced and directed a feature-length documentary entitled Our Summer in Tehran.[5]
In 2013 she became host of Time Team America, shown on PBS.[6][7]
In 2021, Shapiro's company Matlana Media secured the rights to the Globe Trekker show archive. In 2024, she launched a reboot of the show titled Globe Trekker Now with fellow original hosts Ian Wright, Saami Sabiti, and Megan McCormick as well as other original crew members.[8]
Personal life
Shapiro was born in South Africa and grew up in Berkeley, California.[9] She is Jewish.[10]
Shapiro is a survivor of the World Airways Flight 30H airplane crash at Boston's Logan Airport on January 23, 1982.[11]
During an October 2006 broadcast of the Globe Trekker Venice City Guide episode, Shapiro revealed that she went to Tufts University (majoring in history and theater)[9] with Oliver Platt, who recognized her in the crowd while she was covering the Venice Film Festival, where Platt was promoting Casanova.
In her lead-up to a Globe Trekker visit to the Auschwitz concentration camp she stated "Like many Jewish Americans, I have Polish roots. And the Auschwitz concentration camp was where many of my relatives died during World War II."[12]
In Globe Trekker's "South Africa 2", Shapiro and co-host Sami Sabiti traveled to South Africa. While in Soweto, Shapiro visited the nanny she had as a child.[13]
Shapiro has an adult son and lives in San Francisco Bay Area.[14]