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Creator: Francis Ford Coppola

Why can't I hold all these oscars?

Anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos.

Francis Ford Coppola is a famed American film director/screenwriter/producer, best known for such works as The Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now.

After doing low-budget films in the 1960s and early '70s, his breakthrough was winning an Academy Award for his screenplay of Patton. George Lucas was hired to be his assistant. In 1972 The Godfather was a critical and huge commercial success, and with that recognition, Coppola shot George Lucas to fame for producing his American Graffiti and THX 1138. In 1974 he directed The Godfather Part II, and The Conversation in the same year. The production of Apocalypse Now was an absolute nightmare for everyone who worked on it, but the film is widely regarded today by film critics as a masterpiece.

Those were his most famous works. In The Eighties he released Peggy Sue Got Married, featuring his nephew Nicolas Cage. He also directed The Outsiders and Rumble Fish, two "pet projects" of his, and Tucker The Man And His Dream, largely because his father owned a Tucker. The Outsiders launched the careers of more than a few familiar actors now. In The Nineties he went more commercial with films such as Bram Stoker's Dracula, Jack and The Rainmaker.

Recent projects include New York Stories with fellow famed (and Oscar-winning in their own right) directors Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese, Youth Without Youth and Tetro. He now publishes magazines and makes wine and lives in San Francisco.

His father Carmine Coppola was the first flautist for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and won an Oscar scoring The Godfather Part II. His daughter Sofia Coppola became an acclaimed director (despite an ill-fated acting gig in The Godfather Part III). His sister Talia Shire was cast by him as Connie Corleone, and later became Rocky's wife Adrian (her son Jason Schwartzman is also an actor). His brother August is the father of Nicolas Cage. Along with the Hustons (Walter, John and Angelica) they are the only family to feature three generations of Oscar-winners.

Related tropes:

Auteur License: Got it with The Godfather, lost it somewhat after One From the Heart bombed and caused him to file bankruptcy. How much he still has this has varied from project to project since then until the past decade when he was able to fund his own films.
Author Appeal: His main reason for making Tucker The Man And His Dream was his father owned a Tucker. George Lucas produced it for, surprisingly, the same reason - his father also owned a Tucker.
Berserk Button: In the DVD Commentary, Coppola is very defensive of his choice to cast his daughter Sofia in the third Godfather film. The much-criticized casting choice was due to Winona Ryder ducking out of the role day before shooting began (and Coppola being having hard demands to stay on time and budget), and Coppola had to scramble to fill it. It's said to be a poor idea to bring it up in his presence.
Breather Episode: One From the Heart was supposed to be this for him after the incredibly difficult production of Apocalypse Now. Sadly, its critical and commercial failure came close to killing his career and ensured he'd never reach the peaks of his 70s work again.
Creator Killer: One From the Heart (which even earned the nickname One Through the Heart for this), though he's still made somewhat high profile projects compared to most victims of this trope. Its failure did kill his independent production studio though.
In Case You Forgot Who Wrote It: Coppola felt that Mario Puzo deserved most of the credit for The Godfather, so it's known as Mario Puzo's The Godfather. He also named his Dracula adaptation Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Troubled Production: He became a lightning rod for those - The Godfather (Paramount's executives frequently complained with him), The Cotton Club (script issues, budget rising, clashing with the star), One from the Heart (ballooned budget and filming problems) and most infamously, Apocalypse Now, a case so famous that it has its own documentary dedicated to it, Hearts of Darkness. Coppola himself summed it up by saying "My film is not about Vietnam, it is Vietnam" and famously explaining that "We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane."