Film & TV
Francis Ford Coppola
born 1939 · film director, screenwriter, producer
The director of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now was born at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, and his middle name honors the city's most famous carmaker.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan
age 87- Detroit years
- 1939–1941
- Field
- Film & TV
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Francis Ford Coppola was born on April 7, 1939, at Henry Ford Hospital on Detroit's West Grand Boulevard. His father, Carmine Coppola, was then a flutist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and an arranger and assistant conductor for The Ford Sunday Evening Hour, the radio concert series sponsored by Ford Motor Company. That double link to Henry Ford, the hospital and the broadcast, gave the boy his middle name. When he was about two, his father took a post in Arturo Toscanini's NBC Symphony Orchestra and the family moved to New York, settling in Woodside, Queens. Coppola never lived in Detroit again, but the city still counts him as a native son. His 1988 film Tucker: The Man and His Dream returned to the car world of his birthplace, telling the story of Michigan-born automaker Preston Tucker and his doomed 1948 sedan, an upstart challenge to Detroit's Big Three.
Highlights
- Five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for The Godfather Part II (1974)
- Two Palmes d'Or at Cannes: The Conversation (1974) and Apocalypse Now (1979)
- Middle name 'Ford' chosen for Henry Ford Hospital and the Ford Sunday Evening Hour
- Kennedy Center Honors (2024) and AFI Life Achievement Award (2025)
- Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988) tells the story of a Michigan car builder
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Born here · 1939
Henry Ford Hospital
Coppola was born here in April 1939; the hospital is one of the two Ford links behind his middle name.