Francis Ford Coppola (1939-)

Quotation

I had a heartbreaking experience when I was 9. I always wanted to be a guard. The most wonderful girl in the world was a guard. When I got polio and then went back to school, they made me a guard. A teacher took away my guard button.

Books

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Research

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Biographical

American film director, born 1939. Coppola studied film at UCLA and while there, he made numerous short films. In the last 1960s, he started his professional career making low-budget films with Roger Corman and writing. He won an Academy Award for his screenplay for Patton. However, his name as a filmmaker was made in the 1970s as the co-writer and director of The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, which both won the Academy Award for Best Picture, the latter being the first sequel to do so. Following their success he set about filming an ambitious version of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, set during the Vietnam war.

The film Apocalypse Now was beset by numerous problems, including typhoons, drug abuse, and nervous breakdowns, and delayed so often it was nicknamed Apocalypse Whenever. The film was equally lauded and hated by critics when it finally appeared, and the cost nearly bankrupted Coppola's nascent studio American Zoetrope. After a lengthy layoff Coppola returned to directing, with some commercial and critical success. The Godfather Part III, third installment in that saga, appeared in 1990. He also produced George Lucas' breakthrough film, American Grafitti.

Filmography

• Kinsey (2005, co-producer)
  
• The Rainmaker (1997, director)
  
• Jack (1996, director)
  
• My Family, Mi Familia (1995, executive producer)
  
• The Secret Garden (1993, executive producer)
  
• Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992, director)
  
• The Godfather: Part III (1990, director)
  
• Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988, director)
  
• Gardens of Stone (1987, director)
  
• Peggy Sue Got Married (1986, director)
  
• Captain Eo (1986, director)
  
• The Cotton Club (1984, director)
  
• The Outsiders (1983, director)
  
• Rumble Fish (1983, director)
  
• One from the Heart (1982, director)
  
• Apocalypse Now (1979, director)
  
• The Godfather, Part II (1974, director)
  
• The Conversation (1974, director)
  
• The Godfather (1972, director)
  
• The Rain People (1969, director)
  
• Finian's Rainbow (1968, director)
  
• You're a Big Boy Now (1966, director)
  
• Dementia 13 (1963, director)

[This article in part is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License and uses material adapted in whole or in part from the Wikipedia article on Francis Ford Cuppola.]

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