Eleanor Coppola
| Eleanor Coppola | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Eleanor Jessie Neil May 4, 1936 Los Angeles, California |
| Residence | Napa Valley, California |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | UCLA |
| Occupation | Filmmaker, artist, writer |
| Years active | 1963–present |
| Home town | Sunset Beach, California |
| Board member of | Circle of Memory |
| Spouse(s) |
Francis Ford Coppola (1963–present) |
| Children |
Sofia Coppola, Roman Coppola, Gian-Carlo Coppola |
| Family | Nicolas Cage (nephew) |
Eleanor Coppola (born May 4, 1936) is an American documentary filmmaker, artist, and writer. She is the wife of director Francis Ford Coppola. She is most known for her 1991 documentary film Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse as well as other documentaries chronicling the films of her husband and children. Coppola currently lives on her family's winery in Napa Valley, California.
Eleanor Coppola was born Eleanor Jessie Neil, on May 4, 1936, in Los Angeles, California. Her father was a political cartoonist for the Los Angeles Examiner who died when she was 10 years old. She was raised by her mother in Sunset Beach, California. She graduated from UCLA with a degree in applied design and was a member of the women's fraternity Alpha Chi Omega (Alpha Psi chapter).
While working on the set of the 1962 horror film Dementia 13, she met her future husband Francis Ford Coppola. Her position was assistant art director, while Coppola was making his directorial debut with the film. The couple had been dating for several months when Eleanor discovered in 1963 that she was pregnant. Initially Eleanor considered giving the baby up for adoption, but was convinced otherwise by Francis Ford Coppola. The couple married in Las Vegas on February 2, 1963 and gave birth to their first son Gian-Carlo Coppola. Years later, Eleanor gave birth to Roman and Sofia Coppola.
While Eleanor Coppola has not had the same lengthy film career as her husband and children, she was a constant presence on films directed by her famous family members. Her film contribution consists of mainly documentaries in which she has acted as director, cinematographer, videographer, and writer.
Many of her documentaries consist of behind-the-scenes looks at such films as Marie Antoinette, which was directed by her daughter Sofia Coppola. In her documentaries, Eleanor captures the struggles that have endangered her family's films even before they made it onto the big screen. Through her film work, Eleanor Coppola is able to illustrate not only what goes into a film financially, but also capture the emotional toll filmmaking has on the individuals on and off the camera.
For her early film career, Eleanor Coppola spent much of her time accompanying her husband on his film shoots. In 1976, she began documenting the making of Coppola's war film Apocalypse Now. Her recordings of the hectic film process were all recorded and later released in her memoir Notes on the Making of Apocalypse Now which were released in 1979. The book chronicled such events as the near destruction of the film's production as well as the stress that both cast and crew were suffering from at the time. This would not be the only documentation of the making of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now as she decided to film a documentary based on the same movie.
...
Wikipedia