Anton Coppola

Antonio Francesco Coppola (March 21, 1917 – March 9, 2020) was an American opera conductor and composer. He was the uncle of film director Francis Ford Coppola and actress Talia Shire, as well as the great-uncle of Nicolas Cage, Christopher Coppola, Sofia Coppola, Gian-Carlo Coppola, Jason Schwartzman and Robert Schwartzman, and the younger brother of American composer and musician Carmine Coppola. Life Coppola was born in Ocean Hill, Brooklyn, on March 21, 1917, but grew up mostly in East Harlem. He was the son of Maria (née Zasa) and Agostino Coppola, who came to the United States from Bernalda, Basilicata. Coppola started his career at the age of eight with the Metropolitan Opera Children's Chorus. At the age of 9 he was in the Met's debut of Turandot. He served as an army bandmaster during World War II, conductor at Radio City Music Hall and director of both the Symphony and Opera Departments at the Manhattan School of Music. He earned a bachelor's degree (1964) and a master's degree (1965) in composition from Manhattan School of Music and received honorary Doctorates from the University of Tampa and Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. Coppola's first marriage was to Marion Jane Miller, a ballet dancer, with whom he had one child, Susan Marion Coppola (1943–2008). After their divorce, he wed Almarinda Drago in 1950, also a ballet dancer, with whom he had two children, Lucia and Bruno Coppola. He became a great-great-grand-uncle in 2014 with the birth of his grand-nephew Nicolas Cage's grandson Lucian Augustus Coppola Cage and he turned 100 in March 2017.