The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola plans to shoot his next film in the capital, for the saddest of reasons.
‘I want to do something that will be really fun,’ says the multiple Oscar winner, 85, whose wife, Eleanor, died in April.
‘I want to do it in London, one place I never went with my wife. I want to go somewhere that everywhere I turn, I don’t see her.’
Eleanor’s family released a statement to the Associated Press in April 2024 confirming her death. No cause of death was given.
She first met Francis in 1962 while working as an assistant art director on his feature directorial debut, the low-budget horror movie Dementia 13.
The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola plans to shoot his next film in the capital, for the saddest of reasons
‘I want to do it in London, one place I never went with my wife. I want to go somewhere that everywhere I turn, I don’t see her’
They struck up a romance, kicking off a personal and professional relationship that lasted more than six decades until her death.
Over the course of her career she directed several documentaries, often behind-the-scenes looks at the movies of her husband and their daughter Sofia Coppola.
Eleanor was born in Los Angeles and largely raised by a single mother after the death of her father when she was only 10 years old.
After majoring in applied design at UCLA, she began a career as an assistant art director on movies – which brought her to the Ireland set of Dementia 13.
Francis and Eleanor began dating during the making of the movie and in 1963, she discovered that she was pregnant with his baby.
He talked her out of giving the baby up for adoption, and the pair tied the knot in a Las Vegas shotgun wedding before welcoming their son Gian-Carlo.
Although she largely spent the next couple of decades raising the couple’s children Gian-Carlo, Roman and Sofia, she remained in the film world via her husband.
She accompanied him to the sets of his movies as his star rose in the early 1970s with such films as The Godfather, The Godfather Part II and The Conversation.
Francis and Eleanor, who were together since meeting on the set of his directorial debut in 1962, are pictured together in 1991
Eleanor directed several documentaries, often behind-the-scenes looks at the movies of her husband and their daughter Sofia Coppola; pictured with Sofia in 2017
In the mid-1970s, Eleanor was a firsthand witness to the chaotic making of her husband’s Vietnam War movie Apocalypse Now.
The production in the Philippines was beset by one crisis after another, from a typhoon that destroyed the sets to the star Martin Sheen suffering a heart attack.
Eleanor revealed that at one point, the movie was running more than $2 million over budget, an alarming amount in the mid-1970s.
Catastrophe struck when two of the people hired to build a gargantuan temple set were killed in an accident during construction.
Eleanor explored her other interests in documentaries as well, such as the 1996 short A Visit To China’s Miao Country.
In 2016, around her 80th birthday, she broke into narrative feature films by directing the comedy Paris Can Wait, starring Alec Baldwin, Diane Lane and Arnaud Viard.
She kept in the same vein and followed up Paris Can Wait with the 2020 drama Love Is Love Is Love, whose ensemble cast included Chris Messina, Cybill Shepherd, Joanne Whalley, Rita Wilson and Rosanna Arquette.
Eleanor’s family life was rocked by tragedy in 1986, when her firstborn son Gian-Carlo was killed in a speedboating accident, leaving behind a pregnant fiancée.
Over their six-decade marriage, the couple welcomed three children together – Gian-Carlo, who died in 1986, as well as filmmakers Sofia and Roman Coppola
She remained at her husband’s side throughout his career, not only as a filmmaker but when he launched a wine empire later in life.
A few years ago, she was asked whether her husband was different on the sets of his movies than he was while at home with his family.
‘No. I think because he spent his life as a director it’s just in his nature. It’s in his blood. He is always directing,’ Eleanor said.
‘So, when he gets home he’s directing the dinner, where we are gonna sit, what we are going to eat. I’ve adjusted to it, so now it’s really funny.’
