Francis Ford Coppola is one of the most renowned North American directors, despite the fact that he has had bumps with some of his films that almost led him to ruin, films that were not only failed in front of the public, but also for critics.
Coppola is also a good screenwriter and excellent producer, who has known how to invest his money, when he has not done so in his own films.
Francis is surely the most important figure in one of the largest, if not the largest, movie family. Son of actress Italia Pennino Coppola and composer and conductor Carmine Coppola, brother of actress Talia Shire, father of director Roman Coppola and producer, director, screenwriter and actress Sofia Coppola and uncle of actors Nicolas Cage and Robert Carmine and Jason Schwartzman. The Coppola family has been nominated for an Oscar 19 times and has achieved it ten times, six of them have been Francis Ford Coppola, three as a screenwriter, two as a producer and one as a director.
Francis Ford Coppola He was born in Detroit, Michigan on April 7, 1939.
At the age of nine he had to spend a year in bed suffering from polio, his only distraction at that time were his puppets and the family tapes in Super8.
He entered the Hofstra to study Dramatic Arts at the age of 18, there he met James Caan, whom he would later hire for the films "The Godfather”And Gardens of Stone”.
In 1960 he obtained a degree in Theater Arts and graduated from UCLA.
He spent two years shooting erotic movies until he met Roger Corman, for whom he became a personal assistant
During a break from filming Corman's "Friends and Rivals" in Ireland, Coppola managed to shoot his debut feature "Dementia 13". This is the first work awarded to the filmmaker, although he had already collaborated in the making of the film "The Terror" by Roger Corman.
In 1966 he shot “You're a big boy” as a final year project, with which he obtained honors. In this film, one begins to glimpse what they will be recurring themes in the author's filmography, as is the spoiled youth.
Two years later Coppola was commissioned to direct a musical. It was about "The rainbow valley"With Petula Clark and a very veteran Fred Astaire.
Despite being a rather outdated genre, the director came out well, although it is one of the most forgotten films of his filmography.
In 1969 he founded his own production company, “American Zoetrope”. He was the president, the vice president his friend George Lucas.
Having his own production company allows him to make a more personal cinema, so that same year he shoots “It rains on my heart”, a road movie that allows him to show himself as the author that he is. The tape won the Concha de Oro at the San Sebastián festival.