Francis Ford Coppola Biography

Coppola majored in theatre, and gained an MFA in film from UCLA. While there, he worked as assistant to Roger Corman on a variety of modestly-budgeted but lucrative films.

Coppola then wrote an English version of a Russian science-fiction movie, which was released in 1963 as 'Battle Beyond the Sun'. Impressed by the 24-year-old, Corman employed Coppola on several productions.

Coppola directed 'Dementia 13 in just three' from his own screenplay, and the film went on to become a minor cult film among horror buffs.

In 1966, Coppola directed his second successful film, 'You're a Big Boy Now', followed by another original work, 'The Rain People', grand prize winner at the 1970 San Sebastian International Film Festival.

Three years later, Coppola and George Lucas established production company American Zoetrope. At Zoetrope, Coppola produced 'THX-1138' and 'American Graffiti', which received five Academy Award nominations.

In 1971, Coppola's film 'The Godfather' became one of the highest-grossing movies in history, and brought him an Oscar for co-writing the screenplay. The film received an Academy Award for Best Picture, and a Best Director nomination.

In 1974, 'The Godfather Part II' was released. This rivalled its predecessor as a high-grosser at the box office, and won six Academy Awards. Coppola won Oscars as the Best Producer, Director and Writer. No sequel before or since has ever been so honoured.

Coppola then began his most ambitious film, 'Apocalypse Now', which won a Golden Palm Award from the Cannes Film Festival as well as two Academy Awards, following nominations for producer, director and writing Oscars in 1979. The Vietnam War epic, inspired by Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, was plagued by setbacks and made Coppola ill.

Since the 1980’s Coppola has continued to enjoy a successful career, directing many pictures including 'Rumble Fish', 'Tough Guys Don’t Dance', 'The Rainmaker' and 'Bram Stoker’s Dracula'.

Coppola has often worked with family members on his films. He put his two sons into The Godfather as extras during the street fight scene and Don Corleone's funeral. His sister, Talia Shire, played Connie Corleone in all three Godfather films, the first and last of which his daughter Sofia also appeared in.


The ultimate mafia trilogy - The Godfather Trilogy: Remastered Collection

Francis Ford Coppola will always be known as the man who directed the Godfather films, a series that has dominated and defined their creator in a way perhaps no other director can understand. Coppola has never been able to leave them alone, whether returning after 15 years to make a trilogy of the diptych, or re-editing the first two films into chronological order for a separate video release as The Godfather Saga. The films are America's very own Shakespearean cycle: they tell a tale of a vicious mobster and his extended personal and professional families (once the stuff of righteous moral comeuppance), and they dared to present themselves with an epic sweep and an unapologetically tragic tone. Murder, it turned out, was a serious business.

Learn more about the maverick director - Francis Ford Coppola: A Film-maker's Life

Beginning with his birth in 1939 to Italian-American parents, through his early years as a maverick director and screenwriter, right up to his legal victory over Warner Bros in 1998, this book explores Coppola's professional development into one of the finest directors of his generation.