Peter Mintun

A fourth generation Californian, Peter Mintun is one of four children of a Berkeley physician and nurse. On the piano he has played by ear since the age of three. Piano lessons were taken from age seven to fourteen. A steady job as accompanist to Berkeley social dancing club Claremont Teens lasted from age twelve to nineteen. Still a teenager, he accompanied stage shows, Alameda Little Theater, Contra Costa Civic Theater, Berkeley public school productions. Between 1967 and 1972 he accompanied silent film series at University of California (Berkeley), Stanford University (Palo Alto), Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco) and Merritt College (Oakland). Mintun accompanied silent comedies at New York's Film Forum on the occasion of their 25th anniversary week in 1995. In 1970 Mintun became pianist for legendary San Francisco drag troupe The Cockettes, where he helped shape the style and repertoire of the shows. He quit the troupe just before the group's ill-fated New York debut. Mintun began a successful engagement at chic San Francisco restaurant L'Etoile in January of 1973, which helped to make L'Etoile a well-known musical landmark on a par with New York's Cafe Carlyle. At L'Etoile Mintun entertained hundreds of celebrities, some of whom made L'Etoile a regular stop when in San Francisco. Since 1978 Mintun has independently produced several commercial albums of his music. For other record producers Mintun has written "liner notes" about vintage music and has been mentioned in at least three novels, including the best seller Green Monday by Michael Thomas. At the keyboard he entertained Her Royal Highness the Princess Margaret during one of her tours of America. Mintun has also been flown to different corners of the country to entertain at private and public functions. Mintun has been heard as well as seen frequently on television, in commercials as well as profiles. Type-cast as a piano player, Mintun has been seen nationally in The Letter (1982) with Lee Remick (ABC, 1982) and Gene Reynolds' Heartbeat (ABC, 1988). Mintun's 1938 Buick Special enjoyed its screen début in the Lucas film Radioland Murders (1994). Since 1996 Mintun has been a popular guest on Terry Gross' Fresh Air, one of National Pubic Radio's most prestigious interview shows. For 16-1/2 years he made a musical landmark of San Francisco's L'Etoile Restaurant [downstairs in the Huntington Hotel], and for 4 consecutive years he entertained "above ground" at Masons [in the Fairmont Hotel]. In October 1995 Mintun began a seasonal engagement at Bemelmans Bar in the Carlyle Hotel, New York. During that time, Bemelmans Bar was voted by New York Magazine the best piano bar in New York, 1996. In March of 1998 he participated in the Gershwin Centennial Symposium at the Library of Congress discussing the music and career of Dana Suesse, and appeared on WNET's American Masters series in the documentary "Yours for a Song: The Women of Tin Pan Alley." On February 10, 2000 he joined Michael Feinstein in the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in the sold-out "Michael Feinstein and Friends" series. His piano playing is heard on the soundtrack of the HBO series Boardwalk Empire (2010-2011). In 2011 he began an engagement at Feinstein's at Loews Regency, New York. Mintun makes his home in Manhattan.