Peter Coyote has performed as an actor for some of the world’s most distinguished filmmakers, including: Barry Levinson, Roman Polanski, Pedro Almodovar, Steven Spielberg, Walter Hill, Martin Ritt, Steven Soderberg, Diane Kurys, Sidney Pollack and Jean Paul Rappeneau. He is an Emmy-Award winning narrator of over 120 documentary films, including Ken Burns' The National Parks: America's Best Idea, Prohibition, The West, The Dust Bowl and The Roosevelts: An Intimate History. Mr. Coyote has written a memoir of the 1960’s counter-culture, Sleeping Where I Fall, which received universally excellent reviews, appeared on three best-seller lists, sold five printings in hardback and was re-released with a new cover and afterword in May, 2009. His second book The Rainman’s Third Cure: An Irregular Education, will be released in 2015. A chapter from that book, “Carla’s Story," won the 1993/94 Pushcart Prize for Excellence in non-fiction. From 1975 to 1983 he was a member of the Literature Panel of the National Endowment of the Arts and then Chairman of the California State Arts Council. During his Chairmanship and tenure, expenditures on the arts rose from 1 to 16 million dollars annually. He is an ordained Buddhist who has been practicing for 40 years and was ordained as a priest in 2011. He has been engaged in political and social causes since his early teens.