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Update - 05/23/08:
 After
premiering at the Atlanta Film Festival last month,
THE LENA BAKER STORY
successfully nabbed American World Pictures as its
domestic distributor. The filmmakers then headed to
Cannes looking for an international distributor. It was
screened on May 16th as part of the Marché du Film
(The Film Market), which seeks to encourage exchange
between sellers and buyers from around the world. Peter,
who plays Baker's abusive employer, says it was
important to him that she was shown to be "a conflicted
and messed-up woman" who drank, fell into prostitution
and left her children. He says, "When white people make
movies about black people, I call them 'good Negro
movies. In a movie like The Green Mile, the
protagonist is so good it's like Jesus. And in a way,
the movie is saying: 'Do you know how bad the people
have to be to kill Jesus, to kill this person?' It's a
funny way of letting people off the hook, because if
you're bigoted against this pure, noble, uncomplicated
character, you've got to be outside the human community.
To me, this film's lesson is that, messed-up or not, you
have rights as a human being, you have civil rights
under the law and you don't exclude yourself from the
human community by mistakes."
Peter continues, "I’ve spent a lot
of time in the South and, let me tell you, there were a
lot of people that 25 years ago would never conceive of
calling a black man ‘Mister’. Now they are calling Ralph
‘Mister Wilcox’ and they are getting on this train which
he has started trying to pull out of the station. It’s
generating employment and revenue for this little
backward place which has lost it’s cotton and lost it’s
tobacco. “It’s an element of the story I’m proud of and
it certainly had a lot to do with my supporting the
project.” It is apparent from the
earnest, passionate way the filmmakers talk about the
film that it was a project they held very close to their
hearts.
 As
previously reported, Peter was the guest of the
Greensboro Symphony in North Carolina last month. I
recently came across an
interview with Peter
in the city's local paper, Yes! Weekly. Tim
Lindeman of Classical Voice of North Carolina
called "The Gift of the Magi" performance a "fun piece
of theater" noting that Peter's narration provided
dramatic sense and clear diction, which allowed the
audience to hear every word."
Update - 04/29/08:
 Today's
edition of Henderson, NC's
The Daily Dispatch
featured an article on Peter's latest project. He was in town
doing research at the H. Leslie Perry Memorial Library
for a nonfiction book that will include Susie Nelson, an
80-year-old resident. The African-American woman came to
Englewood in the spring of 1945 to help his family
full-time while his mother was ill and ended up helping
to raise Coyote for the next decade. He notes, "For all
practical purposes, she was my mother." Before coming to
the library, he spent several days interviewing Nelson,
who had this to say about "her second son" - "He is a
very gentle man and is very fair. I raised him that
way." Peter plans to write 12 chapters before
finishing the book within the next year. Three of the
titles will be - "If You Think There Is A War On Drugs,
You Don't Understand The Situation.", "If You Think We
Love Our Children As A Culture, You Don't Know The
Facts" or "If You Think Your Government Is There
To Serve You, You've Got It Wrong." His book is intended
to show "how things really work."
 I
haven't come across any official reviews of
THE LENA BAKER STORY,
which premiered at the Atlanta Film Festival
earlier this month, but in a recent edition of the National Ledger,
Peter spoke about his role.
In order to play the brutal, depraved employer, he
evidently had to demand carte blance with his protrayal.
He admitted, "It's scary to find those places. It scared all of us
and was scary to do. Before we went to work, I called
Tichina and the director and said: 'You know. I'm going
to be invoking stuff here from my unconscious, but I
don't know what's going to come up and out of my mouth.
Y'all have to give me a pass 'cause I can't do this guy
if I have to censor myself or worry that I'm going to be
hurting somebody's feelings...' At one point, we were
working, and I called Tichina 'a cockroach.' It was just
ugly, but it was right for the guy, and we both knew it.
But if she were to get offended and say, 'Well, that
wasn't on the page,' I'd have had to put a lid on my
imagination, and you don't want to do that." Peter
recalls: that things got even more intense during
shooting. "One night I had to kidnap Tichina. The whole
scene was extremely frightening and violent and
something came out of my mouth. … Two of the teamsters
that drive the trucks, just big old white boys from
south Georgia came up, and one of them stuck his hands
in front of my face, and they were trembling. He said:
'Man, I ain't never seen nothin' like that. Look at my
hands.' So you know when you get them like that, you
must be piped into something good." He adds of his
co-star: "Tichina is incredible. Wait till you see her
in this thing."
Blast
from the Past - Twenty five years ago
CROSS CREEK
made its screen debut and audiences were introduced to
hotelier Norton Baskin, who befriended author Marjorie
Kinnan Rawlings (played by Mary Steenburgen). I just
came across these two photos that were taken as
publicity shots of Peter in that role. The Washington
Post described him as "smooth as Southern Comfort
and just pouring on the charm." Yes, siree! If you
haven't seen it, be sure to rent it. It's a classic.
The Waldo West Producton,
ALL ROADS LEAD HOME, premiered
back in January at the Santa Barbara Int'l Film Festival
and this month it was screened at the Palm Beach Int'l
Film Festival. Present at the April 12th screening was
director Dennis Fallon and cast members Vivien Cardone
and Vanessa Branch. The film played to a packed house
followed by a Q & A session. In March it received Best
Feature Drama at the International Family Film Festival.
Look for an August 2008 DVD release.
Update - 04/06/08:
The
Atlanta Film Festival (April 10–19, 2008) will open on
Thursday with the world premiere of
THE LENA BAKER STORY,
the debut film by producer, writer, and director Ralph
Wilcox, Besides Peter, the film's cast includes Tichinia
Arnold, Beverly Todd, and Michael Rooker. Shot in
Colquitt, Georgia at the Southwest Film Commission's
Jokara-Micheaux Film, Television, and Music Production
Studio, the film recounts the tragic true story of the
first and only woman sentenced to die in the electric
chair in the state of Georgia. Against her will, African
American housekeeper, Lena Baker (Arnold) engages in a
complicated and controversial affair with her employer,
Eliot Arthur (Coyote). Warned to stay away from the
abusive drunkard by both her mother (Todd) and the town
sheriff (Rooker), Baker gives into Arthur's advances in
a misguided attempt to protect her family. When she
finally has enough, Lena attempts to break away. Arthur
threatens her with a gun and a shocking confrontation
ensues leaving Baker facing a murder wrap in the Jim
Crow era south, at the mercy of a jury of twelve white
men. The cast and crew will be in attendance for a
post-screening Q&A followed by an opening night
celebration at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center.
Follow this link to watch the trailer.
Last
month Peter attended the International Film Festival of
Las Palmas, which was held February 29th thru March 8th.
Besides serving on the festival's jury, he also
presented the film, RESURRECTING THE CHAMP.
There are a couple of interviews given to the
Spanish press that you can
read here, and
below are a few photos from the festival.
Next
month Peter will lend his rich voice to narrating the
Greensboro Symphony Orchestra's premiere of a
composition based on "The Gift of the Magi,"
written by
Greensboro, NC native O. Henry. " The short story,
published in the New York Sunday World newspaper on Dec.
10, 1905, is about a young couple short on money but
desperate to buy each other Christmas gifts.Della
secretly cuts and sells her beautiful hair to buy Jim a
platinum chain for his prized pocket watch, only to
discover that Jim has sold it - to buy jeweled combs for
her hair. Orchestra conductor Dmitry Sitkovetsky thought
it would make perfect sense to honor O'Henry for the
city's 2008 bicentennial celebration so the orchestra
commissioned composer Jakov Jakoulov to write a work
based on the Christmas classic. Then he called on his
longtime friend for his help. Peter responded with,
"Dmitry is one of my old, closest friends. I would read
the Yellow Pages for him. The opportunity to spend a
week with him at the cost of a little performing with a
symphony orchestra (how grand is that?) seemed
like too good a deal to pass up." The performances will
be held on May 1 at 7:30 pm and on May 3 at 8 pm. For
more information,
visit this link. Peter will also host an
introduction and post-screening discussion of his 1992
film, BITTER MOON, at Greenboro's Weatherspoon
Art Museum on April 30 at 7:00 pm.
 On
March 26th nearly 40 theaters across the country aired a
national simulcast of "Everything You Always Wanted
to Know About Separation of Church and State... But Were
Afraid to Ask." Tthe event was emceed by Peter with
guests that included The Bacon Brothers (featuring actor
Kevin Bacon and his brother Michael), actors Jack
Klugman, Michael J. Fox, Dan Lauria and Catherine Dent,
singer/songwriter Catie Curtis, comedian Marc Maron and
satirist Roy Zimmerman. The high-definition program was
hosted by First Freedom First, a joint project of
Americans United for Separation of Church and State and
The Interfaith Alliance Foundation.
 In
a recent edition of Palm Springs Life, writer/director
Charles Evered was interviewd about his latest film,
ADOPT A SAILOR. When asked
to describe his latest work, he responded, "'Adopt a
Sailor' is just what it is. It's an art film, really -
about three people who have dinner in a New York
apartment over one evening. That's it, that's the movie.
It's what they all go through during this evening that
hopefully makes it meaningful. It's not 'Transformers'
or 'Lawrence of Arabia'. We're just trying to tell the
story of these three people, and hopefully, on some
level, other people will find their own lives and
experiences reflected in it." When questioned about his
cast, he had some very flattering words for Peter. "When
you have people like Bebe Neuwirth and Peter Coyote, who
have won Tonys and Emmys and worked with directors like
Polanski, Weir, Spielberg, etc. - what are you going to
tell them? So I just had little private discussions with
them. Peter and Bebe are brilliant in this movie. People
will see both of them in an entirely new light. They
think they know Bebe as that character in 'Cheers'?
Well, that character disappears in this film, because
Bebe shows a level of vulnerability on screen in 'Adopt
a Sailor' that she's never shown before. And Peter is
the same way - he's not just a handsome stud in this
film, with this great raspy voice. He's edgy,
hilariously funny and warm, all at the same time. The
strength of 'Adopt a Sailor' are the performances, I can
tell that already - and I'm proud of that. And as for
Ethan, he's just a revelation, he really is. He has
natural film acting skill. Maybe it is hereditary, who
knows?"
The
Coyote-narrated film "Alaska Far Away" screened
at the Wisconsin Film Festival on Saturday and in a
recent interview with filmmakers Joan Juster and Paul
Hill, they commented on how Peter came to narrate their
documentary.
Juster: The short answer: we
sent him an email, and he said yes. The slightly
longer answer is that we wanted an experienced
narrator whose voice was rough around the edges,
someone who sounded like he understood farmers and
hard times. And we thought Peter would like the New
Deal politics of the film. We were right on both
counts, and he was wonderful for the film.
Hill: And working with him was a producer's
dream. We were able to record him in less than two
hours. We could say to him, "that was great, but it
needs to be 1.5 seconds shorter" and he would do it
again and it would be perfect. I'd heartily
recommend him to any documentarian.
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