Eleanor Coppola

At 87 years old, Eleanor Coppola has this physical status:

Eleanor Coppola (born May 4, 1936) is an American documentary filmmaker, artist, and writer.

She is married to director Francis Ford Coppola.

She is best known for her 1991 documentary film Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, as well as other documentaries chronicling her husband and children's films.

In Napa Valley, California, Coppola lives on her family's winery.

Early life

Eleanor Coppola was born in Los Angeles, California, on May 4, 1936. Her father was a political cartoonist for the Los Angeles Examiner who died when she was ten years old. Delphine Neil (née Lougheed), a mother from Sunset Beach, California, raised her and her brothers. She earned a degree in applied design from UCLA and was a member of Alpha Chi Omega, the women's fraternity (Alpha Psi chapter).

She met her future husband Francis Ford Coppola while on set of the 1962 horror film Dementia 13. Coppola was assistant art director at the time, while Coppola was making his directorial debut with the film for the first time. Eleanor and her partner had been dating for several months when she discovered she was pregnant in 1963. Initially, Eleanor considered giving the baby up for adoption but Francis Ford Coppola convinced them otherwise. On February 2, 1963, the couple married in Las Vegas and gave birth to their first son Gian-Carlo Coppola. Eleanor gave birth to Roman and Sofia Coppola years later.

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Film career

Eleanor has been a regular presence on films filmed by her famous family friends. She has written seven documentaries in which she has appeared as producer, cinematographer, videographer, and writer.

Many of her documentaries were based on behind-the-scenes examinations of Marie Antoinette's film, which was produced by her daughter Sofia Coppola. Eleanor's documentaries capture the struggles that have harmed her family's films long before they made it to the big screen. Eleanor Coppola's film career shows not only what goes into a film financially but also the emotional toll filmmaking has on the people on and off camera.

Eleanor Coppola spent a significant part of her film career accompanying her husband in film shoots. In 1976, she began recording Coppola's war film Apocalypse Now. In her memoir Notes on the Production of Apocalypse Now in 1979, she made her recordings of the tumultuous film process. The book chronicled events such as the near-death of the film's production as well as the strain that both cast and crew were under at the time. This will not be the only record of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now's production, as she attempted to film a documentary based on the same film.

Eleanor Coppola, Fax Bahr, and George Hickenlooper co-directed Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse. Eleanor narrates the trials and challenges surrounding the film's release, recognizing that not only issues arised within the studio but also the cast and crew, which were on the time. On film, there was the unexpected breakdown of the film's lead Martin Sheen's role as well as the difficulties faced Francis Ford Coppola after an expensive set was destroyed.

The documentary film was released in 1991 and went on to win many trophies, including the Emmy for "Outstanding Individual Achievement – Informational Programming – Directing." In 1991, the film was also nominated for a Directors Guild of America (DGA) Documentary Award.

Coppola made her feature film directorial debut with the 2016 romantic comedy Paris Can Wait starring Diane Lane as a wealthy film producer's wife and Arnaud Viard as a charming Frenchman who drives her from Cannes to Paris. At the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival, the film premiered.

Love Is Love Is Love, Coppola's second feature film, a series of intertwined love stories about three couples, will be released in 2020.

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