Filmmaker Eleanor Coppola, the matriarch of a Hollywood heavyweight who directed an Emmy-winning film about the making of husband Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Oscar-winning film “Apocalypse Now,” has died.
Coppola’s representative told USA TODAY that Coppola died Friday at the age of 87 at her home in Rutherford, California, “surrounded by her loving family.”
She and “The Godfather” writer/director Ford Coppola married in 1963, a year after the pair met on the set of her first film, the low-budget, dark horror film “Dementia 13,” and they enjoyed 61 .years of marriage.
Together, they had three children – Gian-Carlo (“Gio”) Coppola, who died at the age of 22 in a boating accident, as well as filmmaker Roman Coppola, who received an Oscar nomination as one of Wes’ screenwriters Anderson’s 2012 film “Moonrise Kingdom,” and Sofia Coppola, whose film “Lost in Translation” won her an Academy Award in 2003.
“The marriage of Coppola and Ford Coppola was shaped entirely by art and film and family, and their careers overlapped in significant ways,” reads an obituary shared by her publicist.
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Beginning with the Emmy Award-winning “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse,” Coppola made several documentaries that showed behind-the-scenes scenes directed by his family. His most recent project involved editing daughter Sofia Coppola’s 2006 film “Marie Antionette,” which starred Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Rose Byrne and Jamie Dornan.
In 2017, Coppola released her first feature film, “Paris Can Wait,” at the age of 81. She wrote and directed the rom-com, starring Diane Lane, Alec Baldwin and Arnaud Viard. He followed this up with 2020’s “Love Is Love Is Love”.
His creative energy transcended the screen as Coppola also wrote two books and created artwork, from illustrations to photography to large-scale installations, that have been exhibited around the world.
According to his memoirs, Coppola has just finished his third book, which chronicled the recent events of his life. In the text, he wrote, “I am grateful for how my unexpected life has spread and drawn me in so many wonderful ways and taken me in so many ways beyond my wildest imagination.”