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Francis
Ford Coppola
Coppola,
Francis Ford (1939- ), film
producer, director, and writer,
born in Detroit, Michigan.
Coppola was educated at Hofstra
University, where he received a
degree in theatre in 1960, and at
the University of California at
Los Angeles (UCLA) film school.
While a student at UCLA he began
working for Roger Corman, a noted
producer of B-movies; he also
directed his first feature film,
Dementia 13, in Ireland in 1963
and began writing screenplays for
Seven Arts
Productions.
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Coppola
won widespread recognition for his
screenplays and direction of You're a Big
Boy Now (1967) and The Rain People (1969).
He won an Academy Award (Oscar) for his
screenplay of Patton (1970).
From
that time, usually working through his own
production centre-Zoetrope Studios, which
has since filed for bankruptcy-and In
collaboration with major studios such as
Universal and Paramount, Coppola became
known as one of the most controversial
American film-makers of his day. The
Godfather (1972) became one of the most
acclaimed films in American film history.
Despite occasional critical or commercial
failures, he won Academy Awards and
international accolades for many of his
films, including The Conversation (1974),
The Godfather, Part II (1974), the Vietnam
War epic Apocalypse Now (1979), Peggy Sue
Got Married (1986), Tucker: The Man and
His Dream (1988), The Godfather, Part III
(1990), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), and
Jack (1996). In 1997 he directed one of
his most well-received films for many
years, the legal thriller The Rainmaker,
based on the novel by John Grisham and
starring Matt Damon and Danny DeVito.
Notable films which, while not directed by
Coppola, were produced by either him or
his production facility included American
Graffiti (1973), the childhood classic The
Black Stallion (1979), Hammett (1982), The
Secret Garden (1992), Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein (1994), and Don Juan de Marco
(1995). Hearts of Darkness: A Film-maker's
Apocalypse, a documentary about the making
of Apocalypse Now, was directed by his
wife, Eleanor Coppola, along with George
Hickenlooper and Fox Bahr, and released in
1991. Coppola's nephew, Nicolas Cage, is a
successful actor.
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