Francis Ford Coppola was born on April 7, 1939 in Detroit Michigan, the middle of three children. When he was two the family moved to New York, where his father was hired as a flautist for the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Contracting polio as a boy, Coppola was bedridden for large periods of his childhood. He would create 8mm feature films using home movies. A talented tuba player, Coppola won a music scholarship to the New York Military Academy. In 1955 he enrolled at Hofstra College where he became interested in directing cinema. He received a Theater Arts degree from Hofstra in 1960 and immediately enrolled in UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. While there he landed a directing job at Premier Pictures Company, a small independent studio that produced soft-core films. Coppola’s first feature length film, Dementia 13, was released in 1963. In 1967 he received a Master of Fine Arts Degree from UCLA.
One of Coppola’s first Hollywood projects was writing a screenplay for the 1970 movie Patton. 20th Century Fox rejected screenplay, but George C Scott refused to play the lead unless Coppola’s screenplay was used. After Patton’s box office success, Coppola and friend George Lucas rented a warehouse on Folsom in San Francisco and founded Zoetrope Studios[1]. It was one of the first studios to adopt digital filmmaking. In 1973 Lucas would leave Zoetrope and establish his own production company, Lucasfilm.
Coppola wrote a screenplay about an American mafia family while sitting in the cafes of North Beach[2]. The Godfather, released in 1972, is one of the best films ever made.
That same year Coppola bought the Columbus Tower/Sentinel Building at 916 Kearny. Bordered by Columbus, Kearny and Jackson, the Sentinel Building is a distinctive copper green flatiron. It was built in 1907 and the top floor housed Abe Ruef’s[3] office for decades. In 1958 the building was purchased by the music group The Kingston Trio and the name changed to Columbus Tower. In 1972, when Coppola bought it, he changed the name back to the Sentinel Building. The first floor houses Cafe Zoetrope[4], Coppola’s European Bistro. The rest of the building is occupied by Zoetrope. Coppola also bought a Queen Ann mansion at 2307 Broadway in Pacific Heights (currently owned by Jessica McClintock). Herb Caen[5] once famously wrote: “Francis is an excellent neighbor, never home”. And of Coppola’s success: “It couldn’t happen to a nicer 31-year-old tuba player who lives on Broadway and wears orange velvet suits.”
The Godfather Part II, released in 1974, is considered by many to be even better than the first film and became the first sequel to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. After Coppola’s third blockbuster Apocalypse Now, released in 1979, Coppola made the decision to move into independent filmmaking. In 1980 he purchased the lot of former Hollywood General Studios in Los Angeles. His first studio film, One from the Heart, was released two years later. The movie, a romantic musical, crashed at the box office, leaving Coppola in deep debt. He was forced to sell the 23-acre Los Angeles studio and in 1990 Zoetrope filed for bankruptcy. After producing a smattering of successful films including Peggy Sue Got Married, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Lost in Translation, Coppola slowly stepped away from the film industry. In 1975 he had purchased a home and vineyard in Napa, where he moved in 1997 to try his hand as a vintner[6]. He also founded Family Coppola Hideaways[7], a resort company with luxury properties in Belize, Guatemala, Italy and Argentina.
In 2001 Coppola established the non-profit North Beach Citizens[8] on Kearny to help homeless find housing and livelihood.
Coppola has received five academy awards, 6 Golden Globes, 2 Palmes d’Or, and a British Academy Film Award. Today Zoetrope is owned and operated by Coppola’s two children Roman and Sofia. In 2020 it was announced that the Coppola family had gotten the green light to convert several of the floors within the Sentinel Building into a boutique hotel.
[1] Visit them at www.zoetrope.com
[2] North Beach: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=5026
[3] Abe Ruef and the Graft Trials: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4041
[4] Visit them at https://cafezoetrope.com
[5] Herb Caen: story coming April 3rd
[6] Visit them at www.thefamilycoppola.com
[7] Visit them at www.thefamilycoppolahideaways.com
[8] Visit them at www.northbeachcitizens.org
