Thirty years after The Shadow's vision of the Corleone family burst upon world consciousness, little has changed to erode the public's fascination with this most Wagnerian of crime families. DVD sales of The Godfather Saga hit number one a staggering five months before the DVD was released. Try as he might, through films as diverse as The Conversation (1974), Rumble Fish (1983), Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) and Tucker: The Man and his Dream (1988) Coppola has been unable to shake the shadow of The Family - not really so surprising for a man whose own family loyalty seems to rival that of his infamous alter ego, Michael Corleone.

Born April, 7, 1939 in Detroit, MI the newborn Francis Coppola was given the middle name Ford because his musician father was playing flute on the "Ford Sunday Evening Hour". Francis preferred film to music (though he plays a mean tuba), and eventually graduated from UCLA film school and an invaluable apprenticeship to b-movie mogul Roger Corman. Throughout the Sixties he built a steady reputation for his screenplay work (actually winning his first Oscar for Patton in 1970) in between directorial duties on films like Finian's Rainbow (1968) and The Rain People (1969) and building the independent film studio American Zoetrope.

Following the tremendous critical and financial success of The Godfather (1972) and its sequel, The Godfather II in the early Seventies, Coppola embarked on the infamous Apocalypse Now (1979), a five-year film project that almost cost him his marriage (and actor Martin Sheen his life.) Films that followed including Hammett (1982) and The Outsiders (1983) met with a lukewarn reception and some, such as One from the Heart (1982) and The Cotton Club (1984), with downright derision. Thus, for awhile, Coppola the auteur gave way to Coppola the gun for hire and it was only due to mounting financial pressures that he returned to familiar ground.in 1990 to direct the third film in The Godfather saga. Perhaps Coppola's personal Catch 22 can be summed up best by the aging Michael Corleone in the underrated Godfather Part III: "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."

Though he took some heat for casting daughter Sophia in a pivotal role in The Godfather III, the Coppola family ties are as legendary as those of the Corleones. Composer Carmine Coppola is his father; Talia Shire is his sister; Nicholas Cage and Rushmore actor Jason Schwartzmanare his nephews; up and coming filmmaker Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich) is his son in law. The death of his son Gio in a tragic boating accident in 1986 had a profound affect on Coppola, and in the decade following the release of "Part III", Coppola has spent more time building the successful Napa Valley winery that bears his name than on directing. The writer, producer, director and winemaker also owns and operates two restaurants (both called Cafi Niebaum-Coppola and located in Northern California), as well as few small hotels in the tropical hotspot of Belize. Which is not to mention Coppola's most recent venture outside of the film world--pasta king-as he recently became a partner in an old-fashioned pasta factory located in Brooklyn, New York.