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Eleanor Coppola, an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker and artist, has died at 87.
Coppola’s death was confirmed to Fox News Digital by a representative for her husband of 61 years, Francis Ford Coppola. She died at her home in Rutherford, California, on Friday, her family said in a statement to the Associated Press. No cause of death was given.
Coppola was best known for directing the Emmy Award-winning 1991 documentary “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse,” which followed the notoriously turbulent production of her husband’s 1979 war drama “Apocalypse Now.”
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Eleanor Coppola, who documented the making of some of her husband Francis Ford Coppola’s iconic films, including the infamously tortured production of “Apocalypse Now,” and raised a family of filmmakers, has died. (Chad Keig/Courtesy of the Coppola family via AP)
Raised in Orange County, California, Coppola graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a degree in applied design. She met Francis, 85, in 1962 while working as an assistant art director on his directorial debut, the Roger Corman-produced 1963 horror film “Dementia 13.”
The two, who married in February 1963, shared son Gian-Carlo, who tragically died at age 22 in a 1986 boating accident, son Roman, 58, and daughter Sofia, 55. An obituary for Coppola stated that her marriage to Francis was “utterly infused with art and film and family, and their work overlapped in profound ways.”
Coppola took up documentary filmmaking while living in the Philippines with Francis during the production of “Apocalypse Now.” Though filming was scheduled to be completed in five months, the shoot was plagued with problems and took over a year to finish.
Coppola began documenting the chaotic making of “Apocalypse Now” as shooting was delayed by a number of setbacks including a typhoon that destroyed sets, the hospitalization of star Martin Sheen due to a near-fatal heart attack and the death of a construction crew member.
Francis and Coppola are pictured on the set of “The Godfather Part II.” (Gerald Israel/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
After “Apocalypse Now” was released in August 1979, the film was nominated for eight Academy Awards, winning two. Coppola’s behind-the-scenes footage, which was compiled to create “Hearts of Darkness,” became one of the most famous films about movie making. It premiered at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival and was released on Showtime.
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The documentary earned four Emmy Award nominations, with Coppola and co-directors George Hickenlooper and Fax Bahr taking home the trophy for informational programming directing.
“The beginning of the film idea for me was certainly documenting ‘Apocalypse Now,’” Coppola recalled in a 2017 interview with Deadline. “I had no idea.”
She continued, “I’d made some little art films in the early ’70s, but when I got this camera in the Philippines I was just mesmerized, looking through the viewfinder. I really responded to that, so I made different documentaries, because I always loved to shoot.”
Coppola and Francis (middle) are pictured with their children Roman (left) and Sofia (right) in 2007. (Ernesto Ruscio/FilmMagic)
After “Hearts of Darkness,” Coppola continued to make behind-the-scenes documentaries about movies directed by Francis and her children Roman and Sofia, who followed in their parents’ footsteps and became filmmakers.
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Roman has directed several movies of his own and regularly collaborates with filmmaker Wes Anderson. He is president of his father’s San Francisco-based film company, American Zoetrope.
Sofia became one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of her generation as the writer-director of films including “Lost in Translation” and 2023’s “Priscilla,” which she dedicated to Coppola.
In addition to several of her husband’s films, Coppola documented Roman’s 2001 movie “CQ” and Sofia’s 2006 film “Marie Antoinette.” Her obituary stated that she was most recently editing a documentary about “Marie Antoinette.”
Francis and Eleanor Coppola were married for 61 years at her time of death. (Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)
In 2016, at the age of 80, Coppola wrote and directed her first narrative feature film, “Paris Can Wait.” The romantic comedy starred Diane Lane, Alec Baldwin and Arnaud Viard. She followed that up with “Love Is Love Is Love” in 2020.
Coppola had initially set out only to write the screenplay to “Paris Can Wait.”
“One morning at the breakfast table my husband said, ‘Well you should direct it.’ I was totally startled,” Eleanor told the Associated Press. “But I said ‘Well, I never wrote a script before and I’ve never directed, why not?’ I was kind of saying ‘why not’ to everything.”
Coppola also published the 1979 book “Notes: On the Making of ‘Apocalypse Now’” and her 2008 memoir “Notes on a Life.” Per her obituary, Coppola completed writing her third book, a memoir about her recent life, at the age of 87.
“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 imaginings,” Coppola wrote in the manuscript.
Coppola is survived by Francis, Sofia and Roman and three grandchildren.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Sarah Rumpf-Whitten is a breaking news writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business.
She is a native of Massachusetts and is based in Orlando, Florida.
Story tips and ideas can be sent to sarah.rumpf@fox.com and on X: @s_rumpfwhitten.
