COPPOLA, FRANCIS FORD

born April 7, 1939, Detroit, Mich., U.S. American motion-picture director, writer, and producer whose films range from sweeping epics to small-scale character studies. Confined to bed with polio at the age of nine, Coppola devised puppet shows for his own entertainment. After taking a graduate degree in film at the University of California at Los Angeles, he worked for a time with director Roger Corman in the production of low-budget horror films. Coppola's first independent directorial effortsTonight for Sure (1961), Dementia 13 (1963), and You're a Big Boy Now (1967)met with mixed critical and popular reaction, but the musical Finian's Rainbow (1968) enjoyed considerable success. In 1970 Coppola received an Academy Award for his screenplay of Patton (1969), a traditional film about the controversial American general of World War II. Coppola directed and cowrote The Godfather (1972). This film, which was based on a novel by Mario Puzo, won virtually unanimous critical acclaim and numerous awards (including three Academy Awards) and proved enormously popular at the box office. The epic drama, remarkable for its accomplished performances and visual authenticity, transformed the inner workings of the organized-crime subculture into a metaphor for corruption on a larger scale. It was followed by The Conversation (1974), a penetrating portrait of one man's involvement in the electronic-surveillance business. The Godfather, Part II of the same year received seven Academy Awards. Another sequel, The Godfather, Part III, appeared in 1990. Coppola's most controversialand costlyfilm, Apocalypse Now (1979), was a transposition of Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness to a Vietnam War setting. Later works include One from the Heart (1982), a musical set in a sound-stage re-creation of Las Vegas; Rumble Fish and The Outsiders (both 1983), which treated themes of underprivileged adolescence; The Cotton Club (1984); Gardens of Stone (1987); and Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988).