Coppola was saved by his father’s unwillingness to accept the diagnosis. Carmine Coppola was a composer who won Oscar scoring several of his son’s films, but perhaps his greatest achievement in his son’s work was going against the grain to ensure Francis Coppola would get a proper shot at life.

Francis Ford Coppola is urging new Trump administration public health picks be cautious about vaccine skepticism.

Responding to mounting concerns that the second Donald Trump administration may limit the use of vaccines after tapping prominent vaccine skeptics like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to his cabinet, filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola opened up about his childhood experience with polio and the "horror" of spending 10 days isolated in a health ward with "screaming kids.