August Coppola, Feb. 16, 1934 – Oct. 27, 2009, flamboyant literature professor who was the father of actor Nicolas Cage and brother of Francis Ford Coppola, has died after suffering a heart attack. He was 75.
Coppola taught comparative literature at Cal State Long Beach throughout the 1960s and '70s and served as a trustee of the California State University system until he moved to San Francisco State in 1984. There, he became the dean of the School of Creative Arts where he also taught cinema until 1992.
Nicolas Cage described his father in a 1996 interview with Playboy Magazine saying, "He was one of the most remarkable characters anybody's going to meet…When I was a kid, the other kids were seeing Disney, and he was showing us movies like Fellini's 'Juliet of the Spirits.' This was before video, so he would take us to the art-house cinemas. I saw 'Citizen Kane,' and that's when I discovered Max Schreck and Nosferatu and Dr. Caligari, which gave me nightmares."
Francis Coppola, director of "The Godfather" trilogy and "Apocalypse Now" described his brother as someone who “always looked out for me.” In an interview with the cinema journal Film Comment, he said, "…in addition, he did very well in school and received many awards for writing and other things, and he was like the star of the family and I did most of what I did to imitate him."
August Coppola is survived by his brother, a sister, Talia Shire; three sons, Christopher Coppola, Marc Coppola and Nicolas Cage; six grandchildren and his companion, Lorrie Tennant.
