The question isn’t if you’ve heard of a member of the Coppola family; the question is how many. There’s Francis Ford Coppola, the patriarch, who directed two of the best films in cinema history: The Godfather and The Godfather Part II. Then there’s his daughter, Sofia Coppola, the creative mastermind behind indie films like Marie Antoinette and Lost in Translation, and his son Roman Coppola, the cowriter of Wes Anderson’s Darjeeling Limited and Moonrise Kingdom. Meanwhile, Gen Z is obsessed with the antics of Sofia’s daughter Romy Mars, a TikTok star and aspiring singer. Today we often describe the descendants of Hollywood lineages as nepo babies, but that term doesn’t even feel like it can apply to the Coppolas. They are a dynasty, each with a unique talent that is arguably their own.
And for decades the quiet strength and guiding hand behind them all was the same woman: the matriarch, Eleanor Coppola. She met Francis in 1963 while serving as an assistant art director on his debut film, Dementia 13. Several months later, after getting pregnant, they married in Vegas, and they would ultimately stay married for the next 61 years. Eleanor often inserted herself as a background observer of their creative pursuits, making documentaries about the films of her family, including Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse, about Francis’s Apocalypse Now, as well as a behind-the scenes look at Sofia’s Marie Antoinette and The Virgin Suicides.
A new book, however, is all about her own voice.
On November 11, A24 publishes her posthumous memoir, Two of Me: Notes on Living and Leaving. Written from 2020 to 2023—prior to her death in 2024—it’s both a reflection on her life as the spouse of one of Hollywood’s most famous men and her own rich creative desires, all as she battles cancer.
Her vulnerability in the book took even those who knew her well by surprise: she wrote extensively about thorny topics such as Francis’s extra-marital affairs (“I got to the brink when I learned that Francis’ girlfriend was out with him and one of our children. She was single and free and auditioning to be the superfun stepmom. That hit me hard in the gut. I was surprised how suddenly clear it was. I realized I had been rationalizing that a girlfriend was a flirtation, like having a geisha) to insecurities she had running in the circles of the rich and famous. (“I remember the terror I’d feel after I’d filled my dinner plate at the buffet and was looking out over the room, wondering where to sit. I didn’t know anyone, they were all famous or were agents or screenwriters or beautiful model girlfriends,” she wrote of attending parties as Francis’s plus one.)
And, she wrote about cancer. (“My tumor is lying on my lungs and heart, its heaviness restricting my blood and breath. That’s the heart of the matter. It’s in the center of me, breath and blood. I have no idea what’s ahead, if I will live another month or a year, but no one really does.”)
