She Even Teaches Vampires to Play Harpsichord

Holly Hunter’s virtuoso piano playing in “The Piano” is leaving audiences awe-struck. But while Hunter did in fact spend much of her childhood learning the instrument and worked at it sporadically as an adult, she admits she needed a little polishing for her role in Jane Campion’s acclaimed film.

In Hollywood there’s a specialist for everything, and it’s no different for mastering keyboards. So after she was cast in 1991, Hunter called Margie Balter, who is Hollywood’s unofficial piano teacher to the stars (and kids of stars), and got to work.

“By sheer luck, I’d started playing again six months before I got the part, after a long hiatus, but my technique was lousy,” reports Hunter, whose character is a mute woman who expresses her feelings while playing the piano. “So Margie worked with me very intensely for three months, getting it up to scratch.”

In fact, under Balter’s tutelage, Hunter was able not only to ace her many screen scenes of playing, but also to lay down the pre-recorded soundtrack for the film. “That was the biggest challenge of all, and I couldn’t have done it without her,” Hunter says. “What’s so great about her is her enthusiasm, coupled with her ability to take the music apart in a very technical way.”

Says Balter: “Holly has a great ear for music, which also made my job a lot easier. We started off with some Chopin to loosen up with, and then began working with Michael Nyman’s score, breaking it down section by section, analyzing it and learning it.”

Hunter is only one of Balter’s high-profile students. She has taught Michael Tucker and Jill Eikenberry (and their 11-year-old son, Max) for several years, as well as the children of Jane Fonda, Bob Dylan, Tracey Ullman and others. Her current mega-pupil: Tom Cruise, who needed teaching from square one in the harpsichord for his role in “Interview With the Vampire.”

“I may have become a piano teacher to the stars by accident,” says the Pittsburgh-born Balter, who is by avocation an actress, but has had little luck landing roles since moving to Hollywood in 1980. “I think the reason my career took off in this direction is that I’m not your average teacher. I’m very eclectic, so I can go from classical to jazz to pop with no problem, whereas most teachers are very rigid in their approach.”

Rigid is one thing she is not. On a recent day at Eikenberry’s home in Brentwood, she huddled with the actress over an arrangement of “Easy as Pie,” a song Eikenberry wrote with Tucker that she is planning to sing on an upcoming Joan Rivers show. Balter’s upbeat enthusiasm kept the two focused on the task at hand.

“She’s in love with the whole process of teaching,” Eikenberry says, “and that’s very infectious. She really opened up the whole world of musical theory to me and made it accessible for the very first time.”

She apparently has her work cut out for her in Cruise, who has never played a keyboard instrument. “He faces a very difficult task,” she admits. “Holly was already an accomplished player before taking on ‘The Piano,’ whereas Tom is not only a complete beginner, but he also has to learn the harpsichord, which is a lot more difficult than piano.

“But he’s very quick to learn and he has a great ability to concentrate. He keeps telling me, ‘This is so much fun, even though it’s hard work.’ ”

To prepare the actor for his role, Balter worked with Cruise in L.A. six hours a week for three weeks before filming began last month. in New Orleans. “And I insist that all my students practice--whoever they are.”

Asked to define her teaching approach, Balter even has a Hollywood answer: “I’m a sort of Lucille Ball character as a teacher--I’ll do anything to make my students get it. I can mold myself to an 8-year-old as well as a Tom Cruise.”