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Peter Coyote

Peter Coyote was born in New York City, New York, on October 19, 1941. He grew up in Englewood, New Jersey.

Coyote graduated from Grinnell College in 1964 and then went into the master's program in creative writing at San Francisco State University. Coyote was a member of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, where he acted, wrote, and directed. He helped found the counterculture group known as the Diggers.

In 1975 Coyote began working for the San Francisco Arts Commission, and in 1976 he was appointed to the California Arts Council by Governor Jerry Brown. He began his film career in 1980 with the movie Die Laughing and has since been in over 150 movies and television productions. Coyote is best known for narrating documentaries, including episodes of National Geographic Explorer, and for his role as district attorney Jerry Hardin in the television series Law and Order. He wrote Sleeping Where I Fall: A Chronicle and The Rainman's Third Cure.

Coyote became ordained as a Zen priest in 2015.