Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He was part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking. In 1970, he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as co-writer, with Edmund H. North, of Patton. His directorial prominence was cemented with the release in 1972 of The Godfather, a film which revolutionized movie-making in the gangster genre, earning praise from both critics and the public before winning three Academy Awards?including his second Oscar, Best Picture, and his first nomination for Best Director. He followed with The Godfather Part II in 1974, which became the first sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Highly regarded by critics, it brought him three more Academy Awards: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture, and made him the second director, after Billy Wilder, to be honored three times for the same film. The Conversation, which he directed, produced and wrote, was released that same year, winning the Palme d'Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival. He next directed 1979's Apocalypse Now. 

April 7th, 1939 in Detroit (Age 85)