31 Facts About Peter Coyote

Peter Coyote was born on Robert Peter Cohon; October 10,1941 and is an American actor, director, screenwriter, author and narrator of films, theatre, television, and audiobooks.

Peter Coyote won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Narrator in 2015 for his work on The Roosevelts.

Peter Coyote was one of the founders of the Diggers, an anarchist improv group active in Haight-Ashbury during the mid-1960s, including the Summer of Love.

Peter Coyote was an actor, writer and director with the San Francisco Mime Troupe from which the Diggers evolved; his prominence in the San Francisco counterculture scene led to his being interviewed for the book Voices from the Love Generation.

Peter Coyote acted in and directed the first cross-country tour of The Minstrel Show, and his play Olive Pits, co-authored with Mime Troupe member Peter Berg, won the troupe an Obie Award from The Village Voice.

Peter Coyote became a member, and later chairman, of the California Arts Council from 1975 to 1983.

Peter Coyote's father was of Sephardic Jewish descent and his mother came from a working-class Ashkenazi Jewish family.

Peter Coyote's father, trained as a rabbi in Russia, escaped being drafted into the Imperial Russian Army, and eventually ran a small candy store in the Bronx.

Peter Coyote "was raised in a highly intellectual, cultural but unreligious family", involved in left-wing politics.

Peter Coyote grew up in Englewood, New Jersey and graduated from Dwight Morrow High School there in 1960.

Peter Coyote later said that he was "half black and half white inside" due to the strong influence of Susie Nelson, his family's African-American housekeeper.

Peter Coyote was in a band called the Kittatinny Mountain Boys.

The immediate, unanticipated consequence, was that no one, not even Peter knew who Peter Coyote was, and he was liberated from his personal history.

Peter Coyote acted, wrote scripts, and directed in the Mime Troupe.

Peter Coyote directed the first cross-country tour of The Minstrel Show, Civil Rights in a Cracker Barrel, a controversial play closed by authorities in several cities.

Peter Coyote was the best known resident of the Black Bear Ranch commune in Siskiyou County, California.

Peter Coyote had first discovered Zen in his teens via the works of Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, and other Beats.

Peter Coyote met Snyder with the Diggers and was impressed with Snyder's "gravitas and elegance, his care and deliberation".

Peter Coyote was later ordained a lay priest in the Soto tradition and was ordained as a Zen Priest in 2015.

Peter Coyote performed audiobook recordings of Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind and Paul Reps's Zen Flesh, Zen Bones as well as narrating the documentary Inquiry into the Great Matter: A History of Zen Buddhism.

In 1978, Peter Coyote began acting again appearing in plays at San Francisco's award-winning Magic Theatre.

Peter Coyote was seriously considered for the role of Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and auditioned for the part.

Peter Coyote's first starring role was in the science fiction adventure Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann.

Peter Coyote starred in Jagged Edge and Outrageous Fortune.

Peter Coyote was cast in lead roles on several television series: The 4400 in 2004 and The Inside in 2005.

In 2005, Peter Coyote served as the narrator for several prominent projects including the documentary film Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and the National Geographic-produced PBS documentary based on Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel.

Peter Coyote narrated an episode of the series Lost in April 2006.

Peter Coyote narrated the 12-hour Ken Burns series on the National Parks, and 15 episodes for the National Geographic Explorer series.

Peter Coyote states he was a close friend of singer Janis Joplin.

Peter Coyote has a website, which features the titles of all his movies and extended samples of much of his writing.

In September 2021, Four Way Books released a collection of Peter Coyote's poetry entitled Tongue of a Crow.