Coppola, Francis Ford (kō`pə'lə), 1939–, American film director, b. Detroit. Coppola began his career directing low-budget films and working on screenplays for other directors. He won his first Academy Award for Patton (1970) and firmly established his reputation with The Godfather (1972; Academy Award). In this film, he converted an unambitious novel about the Corleone family and organized crime into a subtle portrait of the immigrant experience in America. He created an even more expansive version of this story in The Godfather Part II (1974; Academy Award). Apocalypse Now (1979) was Coppola's ambitious effort to show Vietnam as America's Heart of Darkness, with Joseph Conrad Conrad, Joseph, 1857–1924, English novelist, b. Berdichev, Russia (now Berdychiv, Ukraine), originally named Jósef Teodor Konrad Walecz Korzeniowski.
..... Click the link for more information. 's story providing the narrative skeleton; an expanded cut of the film entitled Apocalypse Now Redux was released 22 years later. His post-Apocalypse films, including The Outsiders (1983), The Cotton Club (1984), and Tucker (1987), varied widely in quality, but he returned to top form with The Godfather, Part III (1990), which brought the story of the Corleones into the 1980s. In 1992, Coppola turned to the horror genre with his version of the vampire classic, Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Bibliography

See biography by M. Schumacher (1999).

Coppola, Francis Ford

(born April 7, 1939, Detroit, Mich., U.S.) U.S. film director, screenwriter, and producer. He worked under Roger Corman before achieving his first success with the low-budget but stylish You're a Big Boy Now (1967). He wrote or cowrote screenplays for several films, including Patton (1970, Academy Award). He won acclaim for writing and directing the Mafia epic The Godfather (1972, Academy Awards for best picture and screenplay). His other films include The Conversation (1974), The Godfather, Part II (1974, Academy Awards for best director, picture, and screenplay), Apocalypse Now (1979), Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), The Godfather, Part III (1990), The Rainmaker (1997), and Youth Without Youth (2007).

Coppola, Francis Ford (1939– ) movie director; born in Detroit, Mich. A disciple of Roger Corman, he began directing in 1961. The phenomenal success of The Godfather (1972) led him to set up his own production company and studios, but most of his subsequent movies fared poorly with either the critics or the public, and the colossal expense of his Vietnam War film, Apocalypse Now (1979), all but drove him into bankruptcy. He would recover to continue directing his own movies and supporting those by other young filmmakers but the baroque extravagance of movies such as Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) did little to advance his reputation. His Oscars include awards for Patton (1970, for screenwriting) and three for The Godfather Part II (1974, for direction, screenwriting, and best picture).