Francis Ford Coppola has been within the information lots lately, with hypothesis and anticipation swirling round his long-anticipated epic Megalopolis, however sadly, he is within the information for a unique purpose right now. His spouse of 61 years, Eleanor Coppola, handed away at age 87 on April 12 at their house in Rutherford, California.

Born Eleanor Jessie Neil in 1936, Eleanor met Francis on the set of the latter’s reliable directorial debut, the Roger Corman horror movie, Dementia 13. She was an assistant artwork director, and he was a budding filmmaker simply getting his begin; she was 26, and he was 23. They might go on to start a filmmaking empire, parenting Roman Coppola (CQ, A Glimpse Contained in the Thoughts of Charles Swan III) and Sofia Coppola (Misplaced in Translation, Priscilla). Their nephews are Nicolas Cage and Jason Schwartzman, and their granddaughter is director and actor Gia Coppola (Palo Alto, Mainstream).

“I by no means anticipated Francis to be a star after we acquired married. He was making this black-and-white movie, very low finances. I assumed we have been going to reside within the [San Fernando] Valley,” mentioned Eleanor Coppola in an interview with the Los Angeles Instances in 2008. “I used to be simply as startled and unprepared for a way our lives advanced.”

Eleanor Chronicled the Insanity of Apocalypse Now in Hearts of Darkness

Eleanor and Francis Ford Coppola would endure maybe the best take a look at of their marriage and their careers throughout the manufacturing of Apocalypse Now, the Oscar-winning masterpiece in regards to the Vietnam Battle starring Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando. What started as a five-month shoot changed into a 14-month-long nightmare through which seemingly every little thing that would go improper did go improper.

Eleanor directed a making-of documentary (as she additionally did with a number of different movies), not realizing that it could develop into a vital research of movie historical past, Murphy’s Legislation, and utter insanity. Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse grew to become top-of-the-line documentaries of all time, and received her an Emmy Award.

Even in her later years, in her 80s, she would go on to direct two romance movies, each of which she wrote. The primary, Paris Can Wait, stars Diane Lane as a lady whose trip will get interrupted when her film producer husband (Alec Baldwin) has to go away, leading to a street journey together with his charming producing companion (Arnaud Viard). She then directed Love Is Love Is Love, a triptych romantic drama with an enormous solid.

Coppola shall be dearly missed.