FORA.tv Speaker - Eleanor Coppola

Eleanor Coppola is the wife of the famed Francis Ford Coppola. Born as Eleanor Jessie Neil to an Irish-American family in Los Angeles, she met Francis Ford Coppola on the set of his directorial debut, Dementia 13 in 1962, where she was Assistant Art Director. They married a year later. They had three children, including filmmakers/directors Sofia Coppola, Roman Coppola and the late Gian-Carlo Coppola. During the making of Apocalypse Now, she kept extensive notes which were published in 1979 as Notes on the Making of Apocalypse Now; as well as filming behind the scenes which ended up as Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, for which she was awarded an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Individual Achievement - Informational Programming - Directing" (along with her fellow directors, Fax Bahr and George Hickenlooper). A former graduate student in Applied Design at UCLA, she is active in the restoration and management of the family's historic Rubicon Estate Winery in Rutherford, California, and designs costumes and stage decor for the Oberlin Dance Company of San Francisco.