Ford of the Day

is Francis Ford Coppola

He was born to Carmine Coppola, at the time first flautist for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and his wife Italia in Detroit, Michigan on April 7, 1939, the second of three children. Two years later Carmine became first flautist for the NBC Symphony Orchestra and the family moved back to suburban Long Island, where Francis spent the remainder of his childhood. Coppola had polio as a boy, leaving him bedridden for large periods of his childhood, and allowing him to indulge his imagination with homemade puppet theater productions. Using his father's 8mm movie camera, he began making movies when he was 10. He studied theatre at Hofstra University prior to studying film at UCLA and while there, he made numerous short films, including some soft-core porn films. While in UCLA's Film Department Francis met Jim Morrison, who's music was used later in one of Francis' most famous movies, Apocalypse Now! In the early 1960s, he started his professional career making low-budget films with Roger Corman and writing screenplays. His first notable motion picture was made for Corman, the low-budget Dementia 13.