Eleanor Coppola, a celebrated filmmaker and the wife of director Francis Ford Coppola, has passed away at the age of 87.
In a statement released to the Associated Press, the Coppola family announced that she died at her home in Rutherford, California, on Friday, April 12, surrounded by her loved ones. The cause of her death was not disclosed.
Born on May 4, 1936, in Los Angeles, California, Eleanor grew up in Orange County before attending UCLA. It was there that she met her husband Francis, while working on the set of his 1963 horror film, Dementia 13.
Eleanor and Francis tied the knot in February of that year and went on to have three children: son Gian-Carlo, who tragically passed away at the age of 22 in a boating accident in 1986, son Roman, 58, and daughter Sofia, 55.
Although Eleanor had always harbored an interest in filmmaking, it wasn’t until she began shooting behind-the-scenes footage of Francis’ renowned movie Apocalypse Now, a production that stretched over 230 days, that she fully realized her passion for the craft.
“I don’t know if [Francis] is just trying to keep me busy or if he wants to avoid the addition of a professional crew,”
she reflected in Notes: The Making of Apocalypse Now.
“Maybe both.”
Her documentary work on the set of Apocalypse Now earned her an Emmy Award in 1992 for Outstanding Individual Achievement – Informational Programming – Directing for Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse.
“The beginning of the film idea for me was certainly documenting Apocalypse Now,”
she explained in a 2017 interview with Deadline.
“I had no idea. 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.”
In addition to Hearts of Darkness, Eleanor directed documentaries chronicling the making of her daughter Sofia’s films The Virgin Suicides in 1999 and Marie Antoinette in 2006.
She also directed the 2016 romantic comedy Paris Can Wait and her final directorial credit was the 2020 film Love Is Love Is Love.
Last October, Sofia chose to miss the New York Film Festival screening of her film Priscilla to be with her mother, expressing her regrets in a statement read by producer Youree Henley.
