Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is widely acknowledged as being a talented and innovative screenwriter and director, who has refused to kowtow to the movie-making industry's thirst for safe, lucrative hits. Born in Michigan in 1939 to a creative and supportive family, Coppola became seriously interested in filmmaking while studying drama at Hofstra University in the late 1950s. He went on to study film at UCLA and began working for B-movie producer Roger Corman in many capacities. Corman gave him the directing chair for the horror flick Dementia 13 (1963), and Coppola went on to form his own production company with George Lucas in the late 1960s. Among the films Zoetrope Studios produced was Lucas’ American Graffiti (1973). In 1970 Coppola won an Oscar for his work on the screenplay for Patton, and this attention prompted Paramount to approach him about adapting and directing Mario Puzo's best-seller The Godfather for the screen. The Godfather (1972) was a critical and box office smash, as was the sequel - The Godfather II (1974). Coppola also won acclaim for The Conversation, also made in 1974. Coppola then began working on an adaptation of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness set in Vietnam, which would become the film Apocalypse Now (1979). The filming encountered one setback after another: if it wasn’t an actor having a heart attack, there was a typhoon or malfunctioning helicopter. Apocalypse Now was released over-budget and off-schedule, and nonetheless still stands as an immense achievement in film history. Coppola went into debt, and a succession of failed movies in the 1980s such as One from the Heart and The Cotton Club exacerbated matters. Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) finally delivered financial and critical acclaim, as did subsequent movies such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Coppola has also gone into winemaking in Napa Valley and founded a literary magazine, All-Story. His latest film is Youth Without Youth.
