Anton Coppola Anton Coppola Antonio Francesco Coppola (born March 21, 1917) is an American opera conductor and composer. He is the uncle of film director Francis Ford Coppola and actress Talia Shire, as well as the grand-uncle of Nicolas Cage, Sofia Coppola, Gian-Carlo Coppola, Jason Schwartzman and Robert Schwartzman, and is the younger brother of American composer and musician Carmine Coppola. 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
Francis Ford Coppola the latter's first film, "THX 1138". Shortly after completion of production they brought the finished film to Warner Bros., along with several other scripts for potential projects at their newly founded company, American Zoetrope. However, studio executives strongly disliked all the scripts, including "THX" and demanded that Coppola repay the $300,000 they had loaned him for the Zoetrope studio, as well as insisting on cutting five minutes from the film. The debt nearly closed Zoetrope and forced Coppola to reluctantly focus on "The Godfather". His company American Zoetrope also administers the Zoetrope Virtual Studio, a complete motion picture production studio