The Conversation, which Coppola directed, produced and wrote, was released that same year, winning the Palme d ' Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival.

Coppola was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a family of Italian ancestry ( his paternal grandparents were immigrants from Bernalda, Basilicata ).

His parents were Italia ( née Pennino ) and Carmine Coppola, who was the first flautist for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

He was the second of three children ( his older brother was August Coppola and younger sister is actress Talia Shire ).

While pursuing his bachelor's degree, Coppola was elected president of The Green Wig ( the university's drama group ), the Kaleidoscopians, ( its musical comedy club ) and he then merged the two into The Spectrum Players.

While a graduate student, one of his teachers was Dorothy Arzner, whose encouragement Coppola later acknowledged as pivotal to his film career.

Coppola was hired as an assistant by Roger Corman.

However, fame was still eluding him, and partly out of desperation, Coppola bought the rights to the David Benedictus novel You're a Big Boy Now and fused it with a story idea of his own, resulting in You're a Big Boy Now ( 1966 ).

Following the success of You're a Big Boy Now, Coppola was offered the reins of the movie version of the Broadway musical Finian's Rainbow, starring Petula Clark, in her first American film, and veteran Fred Astaire.

It was written, directed and initially produced by Coppola himself, though as the movie advanced, he fell short of his budget and the studio had to underwrite the remainder of the movie.

While touring Europe, Coppola was introduced to alternative filmmaking equipment and inspired by the bohemian spirit of Lanterna Film.

However, it was not easy for Coppola to convince Franklin J. Schaffner that the opening scene would work.

There was disagreement between Paramount and Coppola on the issue of casting ; Coppola stuck to his plan of casting Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone, though Paramount wanted either Ernest Borgnine or Danny Thomas.

At one point, Coppola was told by the then-president of Paramount that " Marlon Brando will never appear in this motion picture ".

After pleading with the executives, Coppola was allowed to cast Brando only if he appeared in the film for much less salary than his previous films, perform a screen-test, and put up a bond saying that he would not cause a delay in the production ( as he had done on previous film sets ).

Although Coppola insisted that this was purely coincidental, for not only was the script for The Conversation completed in the mid-1960s ( before the election of Richard Nixon ) but the spying equipment used in the film was discovered through research and the use of technical advisers and not, as many believed, by revelatory newspaper stories about the Watergate break-in.

The movie was a critical success, and won Coppola his first Palme d ' Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival.

In the director's commentary on the DVD edition of the film ( released in 2002 ), Coppola states that this film was the first major motion picture to use " Part II " in its title.

According to Coppola, the studio's objection stemmed from the belief that audiences would be reluctant to see a film with such a title, as the audience would supposedly believe that, having already seen The Godfather, there was little reason to see an addition to the original story.

It was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and received 6 Oscars, including 3 for Coppola: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director.

Coppola said that all the advice Corman offered was " Don't go ".

At UCLA, Coppola directed a short horror film called “ The Two Christophers ” inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's " William Wilson ".

The company that hired Coppola to edit Tonight for Sure brought him back to re-cut a German film titled Mit Eva fing die Sünde an directed by Fritz Umgelter.

In 1965, Coppola won the annual Samuel Goldwyn Award for the best screenplay ( Pilma, Pilma ) written by a UCLA student.

According to Robert Evans, head of Paramount Pictures at the time, Coppola also did not initially want to direct the film because he feared it would glorify the Mafia and violence, and thus reflect poorly on his Sicilian and Italian heritage ; on the other hand, Evans specifically wanted an Italian-American to direct the film because his research had shown that previous films about the Mafia that were directed by non-Italians had fared dismally at the box office, and he wanted to, in his own words, " smell the spaghetti ".

The production of the film was plagued by numerous problems, including typhoons, nervous breakdowns, the firing of Harvey Keitel, Martin Sheen's heart attack, extras from the Philippine military leaving in the middle of scenes to go fight rebels, and an unprepared Brando with a bloated appearance ( which Coppola attempted to hide by shooting him in the shadows ).

The 1991 documentary film Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, directed by Eleanor Coppola ( Francis's wife ), Fax Bahr and George Hickenlooper, chronicles the difficulties the crew went through making Apocalypse Now, and features behind-the-scenes footage filmed by Eleanor.

After filming Apocalypse Now, Coppola famously stated: " We were in the jungle, there were too many of us, we had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little, we went insane.

Although Coppola was not credited for his effort, according to one source, " by the time the final version was released in 1982, only 30 percent of Wenders ' footage remained, and the rest was completely reshot by Coppola, whose mere ' executive producer ' credit is just a technicality.

Carmine Coppola wrote and edited the musical score, including the title song " Stay Gold ", which was based upon a famous Robert Frost poem and performed for the movie by Stevie Wonder.

The film was overshadowed by the death of Coppola's eldest son Gian-Carlo Coppola during the film's production.

The last film Coppola directed in the 90s, The Rainmaker was based on the 1995 novel of the same name by John Grisham.

" In the same year, he was invited by Francis Ford Coppola to recruit a production staff for American Zoetrope's One from the Heart ( 1982 ).

Voight took a supporting role in The Rainmaker, adopted from the John Grisham novel and directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

Brownlow's restoration was later distributed in America re-edited and shortened by Francis Ford Coppola with a live orchestral score composed by his father Carmine Coppola.

However, Coppola told the head of Gaumont, Europe's largest distribution and production company, that he thought the film might cost $ 65 million.

Gerald ( Rod ) Coppola, channel 13's head transmitter engineer, was among those who perished when the north tower collapsed.

Coppola, having flourished after the near financial disaster of Apocalypse Now, plowed all of the enormous success of that film into American Zoetrope, effectively becoming his own studio head.

On November 2010 the club was acquired by a consortium of Rome-based enterpreneurs ( including popular actor Luca Zingaretti ) for a sum of € 400, 000 ; the new owners immediately made a number of changes, appointing former Cagliari player Maurizio Coppola as head coach and former Serie A star Abel Balbo as assistant coach and technical area coordinator.

However, on The Godfather Part IIIs DVD commentary, Coppola explains that both he and Puzo had envisioned a fourth part to the saga, one storyline of which would deal with Vincent's reign as head of the Corleone family.

Francis Ford Coppola deliberately incorporated elements of Lear in his 1990 sequel The Godfather Part III, including Michael Corleone's attempt to retire from crime throwing his domain into anarchy, and most obviously the death of his daughter in his arms.

The Godfather Part II is a 1974 American crime epic that Francis Ford Coppola produced, directed, and co-wrote with Mario Puzo, starring Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, and Robert De Niro.

The Godfather Part III is a 1990 American crime film written by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola, and directed by Coppola.

With the help of his top capos, Joe Adonis, Anthony Carfano ( also known as " Little Augie Pisano ") and Michael " Trigger Mike " Coppola, the crime family ran smoothly and undeterred.

* December 20-Raffaele Quasarano, Detroit crime syndicate leader and associate of Frank Costello and Frank Coppola.

* Michael Coppola " Trigger Mike ", Luciano crime family Capo