Eleanor Coppola dies at 87

Eleanor Coppola, who documented the making of some of her husbands Francis Ford Coppola Iconic films, including the infamous and tortured production of “Apocalypse Now,” which raised a family of filmmakers, are dead. She was 87 years old.

Coppola died Friday surrounded by her family at her home in Rutherford, California, her family announced in a statement. She was not given any cause of death.

Eleanor, who grew up in Orange County, California, met Francis while working as an assistant art director on his directorial debut, the 1963 Roger Corman-produced horror film “Dementia 13.” (She had studied design at UCLA). Within months of dating, Eleanor became pregnant and the couple married in Las Vegas in February 1963.

His firstborn, Gian-Carlo, quickly became a regular presence in his father’s films, as did his subsequent children, Roman (born 1965) and Sofia (born 1971). After acting in his father’s movies and growing up on the sets, they would all go to the movies.

“I don’t know what the family has contributed, except that I hope they have set the example of a family that encourages each other in their creative process, whatever it may be,” Eleanor told The Associated Press in 2017. “It happens in our family that everyone They chose to continue in the family business. We didn’t ask them or expect them to do it, but they did it. At one point Sofia said: ‘The nut does not fall far from the tree.’”

Gian-Carlo, who is seen in the background of many of his father’s films and had begun doing second unit photography, died at the age of 22 in a boating accident in 1986. He died while traveling on a boat piloted by Griffin O’Neal, son of Ryan O’Neal, who was convicted of negligence.

Roman directed several of his own films and regularly collaborates with Wes Anderson. He is president of his father’s film company, American Zoetrope, based in San Francisco.

Sofia became one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of her generation as a screenwriter and director of films such as “Lost in Translation” and the 2023 release “Priscilla.” Sofía dedicated that film to her mother.

By joining the family business, Coppola’s children were not only following in their father’s footsteps, but also in their mother’s. From “Apocalypse Now” from 1979 Eleanor frequently documented life behind the scenes of Francis’ films. Filming for “Apocalypse Now” in the Philippines lasted 238 days. A typhoon destroyed sets. Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack. A member of the construction team died.

Eleanor documented much of the chaos in what would become one of the most famous films about filmmaking, 1991’s “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse.”

“I was just trying to keep myself busy with something to do because we were there for a long time,” Eleanor told CNN in 1991. “They wanted five minutes for a TV promo or something and I thought sooner or later I could get five minutes.” minutes of film and then it went to 15 minutes.”

“I kept filming but I had no idea… of the evolution of myself that I saw with my camera,” continued Eleanor, who ended up filming 60 hours of footage. “So, it was a surprise for both of us and a life-changing experience.”

Eleanor also published “Notes: On the Making of ‘Apocalypse Now’” in 1979. While the film focused on the tumult of the set, the book described some of Eleanor’s internal turmoil, including the challenges of being married to a human being. larger than life. figure. She wrote about being a “woman isolated from my friends, my affairs and my projects” during her year in Manila. She also speaks candidly about Francisco having an extramarital affair.

“There is a part of me that has been waiting for Francisco to leave me or die so I can have my life the way I want,” Eleanor wrote. “I wonder if I’ll have the guts to get it the way I want with him in it.”

However, they remained together throughout their lives. And Eleanor continued to seek creative outlets for herself. She documented several more of her husband’s films, as well as Roman’s “CQ” and Sofia’s “Marie Antoinette.” She wrote her 2008 memoir, “Notes on a Life.”

In 2016, at the age of 80, Eleanor made her narrative debut in “Paris Can Wait,” a romantic comedy starring Diane Lane. She followed up with “Love Is Love Is Love” in 2020. Initially, Eleanor had only set out to write the script for “Paris Can Wait.”

“One morning at the breakfast table, my husband said, ‘Well, you should direct it.’ “I was totally surprised,” Eleanor told the AP. “But I said, ‘Well, I’ve never written a script before and I’ve never directed it, so why not?’ “I was like saying ‘why not’ to everything.”

Leonor died just when Francisco was preparing a long-planned and self-financed epic, “Metropolis,” which will premiere next month at the Cannes Film Festival.

She is survived by her husband; her son Roman and his wife Jen, her sons, Pascale, Marcello and Alessandro; her daughter Sofía and her husband Thomas, her children Romy and Cosima; her granddaughter Gia and her husband Honor, and her son Beaumont; and by her brother William Neil and his wife, Lisa.

Eleanor recently completed her third memoir, the family said. In the manuscript she wrote:

“I appreciate how my unexpected life has stretched and pulled me in so many extraordinary ways and taken me in a multitude of directions beyond my wildest imaginations.”