èßäAV

Francis Ford Coppola is one of the most influential and acclaimed filmmakers of our time; a five-time Academy Award®–winning director, writer, and producer. Born in Detroit, Michigan in 1939, he grew up in Queens, New York. When paralyzed by polio at nine years old and bedridden for a year, he found solace in television and a toy 16mm movie projector, which developed into an interest in storytelling. He was soon writing short stories and plays and went on to study theater at Hofstra College, and then film at UCLA. At UCLA, he won the coveted Samuel Goldwyn Writing Award for his screenplay Pilma Pilma, which gave him the opportunity to be hired by Seven Arts as a screenwriter, his initiation into the film business.

In 1969, Coppola co-founded the pioneering film company American Zoetrope with fellow filmmaker George Lucas, which has initiated and nourished the careers of many prolific directors and actors. American Zoetrope-produced films have received 16 Academy Awards® and 70 nominations, with four included in the American Film Institute’s top 100 American films.

In 1970, Coppola won his first Oscar®, for best original screenplay for Patton. That decade he would go on to write, direct, and/or produce The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, American Graffiti, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now, resulting in two Cannes Palme d’Or Awards, 12 Academy Award® nominations, and five Academy Awards®, making the period arguably the most successful decade any filmmaker has ever had. In 2010, he received the Academy’s prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. As a writer, director, producer, and technological pioneer, Coppola has created a body of work that has helped shape contemporary American cinema.

In addition to his prolific film career, Francis has been producing wine for over 45 years at his Napa Valley winery, has luxury resorts in Central America, Argentina, and Italy, and runs an award-winning short story magazine, Zoetrope: All-Story. 

Recent Kennedy Center history:

Francis Ford Coppola appeared in the Kennedy Center Honors tribute for Martin Scorsese in 2007; as one of two distributors that restored the original film, Coppola’s presentation of Abel Gance’s reconstructed epic film masterpiece, Napoleon, was performed live by the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra in February 1982 at the Kennedy Center Opera House. The score was conducted by Carmine Coppola, its composer, and organist Dennis James joined as part of these performances.