Lynne Warfel: From the silver screen to the Silver City

Some radio hosts have always dreamed of doing exactly what they do for a living. That's not how it worked for Lynne Warfel, though. "I fell into it," she admitted to me as we sat in the American Public Media atrium earlier this week. "I had no intention of being in radio."

As we celebrate Member Appreciation Week, we're asking some of our hosts to share the stories of how they got their starts in radio broadcasting. Lynne, it turns out, was "a theater person all the way" when she was in college at Northwestern University.

What happened? "Well," said Lynne with a dry smile, "I don't take rejection well. They say, 'Don't take it personally,' and I do. Also, I like to be able to afford to eat and pay my rent."

Even so, Lynne has spent plenty of time on stage. She's worked with the legendary Second City comedy troupe in Chicago, she's performed in a Vegas show group, and she's acted on screen alongside James Garner. (Read more about Lynne's history with the famous movie star, who died last year.)

When she was living in Hollywood, Lynne decided to pursue graduate study at Fuller Theological Seminary — but "show business followed me" even into the seminary, she said. She did some voiceover work, and then "got a little rebellious" and decided to take an acting class.

Through the teacher of that class, Lynne was connected to KFAC, which was then the commercial classical music station in Los Angeles. "They were looking for a woman," remembered Lynne, "and they hired Nicola Lubitsch," daughter of the famous film director Ernst Lubitsch. "When she decided it wasn't for her, they hired me."

Lynne remembered that she didn't feel at all nervous during her training at KFAC, given her extensive experience in performing. Then, suddenly, just 30 seconds before her first shift, nerves struck. "I was literally almost throwing up."

She was so flustered that she mispronounced the name of the first composer she had to mention on air. "The first piece I played was Wagner's Rienzi, and even though I knew better because of my voice training, I was so nervous that I said his name like Robert Wagner's."

Her boss was "very laconic" about it, though, and after a few months, everything was fine. "It was like getting shoved down the hill on a bicycle," Lynne said, explaining that she's never been nervous since.

That job got Lynne through grad school, and then she spent some time as a rock radio host in Scotland. She moved back to the United States in 1991, and was offered a job at our studios in St. Paul — sometimes nicknamed "the Silver City" — in 1993.

At American Public Media, Lynne is a regular host of our classical music programming, and she also hosts our special Flicks in Five series of quick takes on famous film music. We're lucky to have Lynne's unique perspective on music, movies, and the special relationship those art forms have always shared.

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