Francis Ford Coppola

Francis Ford Coppola is best known as the five-time Academy Award-winning director of such epic films as the Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now. Born in Detroit in 1939, Coppola grew up in Queens, New York. Bedridden with polio as a child, he developed an interest in film after being given a toy movie projector. A prolific theater and film student at Hofstra College and UCLA, he first made his mark as the Oscar-winning screenwriter behind Patton, and followed it up with the Godfather films, Apocalypse Now, and The Conversation. These films have consistently been listed among the greatest films ever made and have helped to shape contemporary American cinema.