Eli Wallach + Anne Jackson + Francis Ford Coppola: The Oscars

Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson: Husband and wife team on the Oscars’ Red Carpet.

Eli Wallach & Anne Jackson at the Academy Awards

Eli Wallach and wife Anne Jackson are seen above arriving at the 2011 Academy Awards ceremony, held on Sunday, Feb. 27, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.

The 95-year-old Wallach was given an Honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards in November 2010.

Check out: “Doris Day Inexplicably Snubbed by Academy,” “Maureen O’Hara Honorary Oscar,” “Honorary Oscars: Mary Pickford, Greta Garbo Among Rare Women Recipients,” and “Hayao Miyazaki Getting Honorary Oscar.”

Delayed film debut

The Actors Studio-trained Eli Wallach was to have made his film debut in Fred Zinnemann’s Academy Award-winning 1953 blockbuster From Here to Eternity. Ultimately, however, Frank Sinatra – then a has-been following a string of box office duds – was cast for a pittance, getting beaten to a pulp by a pre-stardom Ernest Borgnine.

For his bloodied efforts, Sinatra went on to take home the year’s Best Supporting Actor Oscar and to become one of the top film stars of the late ’50s and early ’60s.

Having missed out on that major film break, Eli Wallach – by then already 40 – would end up making his film debut in the much more modest Baby Doll (1956), a controversial, sexually charged Tennessee Williams comedy directed by Elia Kazan and starring Carroll Baker in the title role. Baker was shortlisted for the Best Actress Oscar, while Wallach took home the British Academy Award for the Most Promising Newcomer to Film.

From then on, Eli Wallach would be featured in about 80 movies and, since 1951, in about as many television shows.

Eli Wallach in ‘Baby Doll’ with Carroll Baker: Controversial sex comedy.

Eli Wallach movies

Below is a brief list of notable Eli Wallach films. Curiously, the Honorary Oscar recipient and Tony Award winner (for the 1951 production of Tennessee Williams’ The Rose Tattoo, opposite Maureen Stapleton) was never even nominated for a competitive Academy Award.*

• Baby Doll (1956).
  Director: Elia Kazan.
  Cast: Carroll Baker. Karl Malden. Eli Wallach. Mildred Dunnock.
• The Magnificent Seven (1960).
  Director: John Sturges.
  Cast: Yul Brynner. Eli Wallach. Steve McQueen. Horst Buchholz. James Coburn. Charles Bronson. Robert Vaughn. Brad Dexter. Vladimir Sokoloff.
• The Misfits (1961).
  Director: John Huston.
  Cast: Clark Gable. Marilyn Monroe. Montgomery Clift. Eli Wallach. Thelma Ritter.
• How the West Was Won (1962).
  Director: John Ford. Henry Hathaway. George Marshall.
  Cast: Gregory Peck. Debbie Reynolds. Carroll Baker. Henry Fonda. John Wayne. James Stewart. Thelma Ritter. Eli Wallach. George Peppard. Robert Preston. Karl Malden. Carolyn Jones. Lee J. Cobb. Richard Widmark. Brigid Bazlen. Walter Brennan. Agnes Moorehead. Raymond Massey. Andy Devine. David Brian. Harry Morgan. Russ Tamblyn. Mickey Shaughnessy.
• The Victors (1963).
  Director: Carl Foreman.
  Cast: Vince Edwards. Melina Mercouri. Jeanne Moreau. George Hamilton. Eli Wallach. Albert Finney. George Peppard. Maurice Ronet. Rosanna Schiaffino. Romy Schneider. Elke Sommer. Peter Fonda. James Mitchum. Senta Berger. Michael Callan. Mervyn Johns. Peter Vaughan.
• How to Steal a Million (1966).
  Director: William Wyler.
  Cast: Audrey Hepburn. Peter O’Toole. Eli Wallach. Hugh Griffith. Charles Boyer. Fernand Gravey. Marcel Dalio.
• The Good, the Bad and the Ugly / Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (1966).
  Director: Sergio Leone.
  Cast: Clint Eastwood. Eli Wallach. Lee Van Cleef.
• The Deep (1977).
  Director: Peter Yates.
  Cast: Nick Nolte. Jacqueline Bisset. Robert Shaw. Eli Wallach.
• The Godfather: Part III (1990).
  Director: Francis Ford Coppola.
  Cast: Al Pacino. Diane Keaton. Andy Garcia. Eli Wallach. Joe Mantegna. Sofia Coppola. Talia Shire. Bridget Fonda. Raf Vallone. Helmut Berger.
• The Ghost Writer (2010).
  Director: Roman Polanski.
  Cast: Ewan McGregor. Pierce Brosnan. Kim Cattrall. Olivia Williams. James Belushi. Tom Wilkinson. Timothy Hutton. Eli Wallach.
• Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010).
  Director: Oliver Stone.
  Cast: Michael Douglas. Shia LaBeouf. Carey Mulligan. Josh Brolin. Susan Sarandon. Eli Wallach. Frank Langella. Jason Clarke.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps turned out to be Wallach’s final film appearance.

* Eli Wallach’s role in The Rose Tattoo was played by From Here to Eternity star Burt Lancaster in the Daniel Mann-directed 1955 film version. Eventual Best Actress Oscar winner Anna Magnani co-starred.

Eli Wallach in ‘The Misfits,’ with Marilyn Monroe: Troubled production.

Golden Globe nominee and Emmy winner

Besides his Bafta win, Eli Wallach’s Baby Doll performance earned him a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe nomination. He lost to Earl Holliman for The Rainmaker.

For his television work, Wallach was shortlisted for five Primetime Emmy Awards. He won in the Best Supporting Actor category for the Terence Young-directed TV movie (also shown in theaters) Poppies Are Also Flowers a.k.a. The Poppy Is Also a Flower. The generally panned 1966 drama about the dangers of opium was narrated by Grace Kelly and featured cameos and supporting appearances by the likes of Rita Hayworth, Trevor Howard, and Omar Sharif.

Wallach’s last Emmy nod was in the Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series category for the 2009 Nurse Jackie episode “Chicken Soup.” He lost to Neil Patrick Harris for the Glee episode “Bryan Ryan.”

Anne Jackson in ‘The Secret Life of an American Housewife’: Shades of Luis Buñuel’s ‘Belle de Jour.’

Anne Jackson movies

Mostly a stage performer, Anne Jackson appeared infrequently in films: less than 25 features between 1950 and 2008 – in addition to about 40 TV roles.

Jackson’s best-known big-screen parts are probably her bored housewife posing as a call girl in George Axelrod’s 1968 comedy The Secret Life of an American Wife and that of a doctor in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 cult classic The Shining.† Below is a brief list of notable Anne Jackson movies.

• Tall Story (1960).
  Director: Joshua Logan.
  Cast: Anthony Perkins. Jane Fonda. Ray Walston. Marc Connelly. Anne Jackson. Murray Hamilton. Elizabeth Patterson.
• How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life (1968).
  Director: Fielder Cook.
  Cast: Dean Martin. Stella Stevens. Eli Wallach. Anne Jackson. Betty Field. Jack Albertson.
• The Secret Life of an American Wife (1968).
  Director: George Axelrod.
  Cast: Walter Matthau. Anne Jackson. Patrick O’Neal. Edy Williams. Richard Bull.
• Lovers and Other Strangers (1970).
  Director: Cy Howard.
  Cast: Diane Keaton. Bea Arthur. Michael Brandon. Bonnie Bedelia. Richard S. Castellano. Cloris Leachman. Anne Jackson. Anne Meara. Gig Young. Harry Guardino. Anthony Holland.
• The Shining (1980).
  Director: Stanley Kubrick.
  Cast: Jack Nicholson. Shelley Duvall. Danny Lloyd. Scatman Crothers. Barry Nelson. Anne Jackson.
• Lucky Days (2008).
  Director: Angelica Page. Tony Torn.
  Cast: Angelica Page. Federico Castelluccio. Luke Zarzecki. Will Patton. Anne Jackson. Rip Torn. Tony Torn.

Lucky Days remains Anne Jackson’s final film.

† With (tame) shades of the kinky, 1967 Luis Buñuel-Catherine Deneuve effort Belle de Jour, The Secret Life of an American Wife is unrelated to Anne Jackson’s other 1968 movie, How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life – or, for that matter, to the 1965 Jack Lemmon-Virna Lisi comedy How to Murder Your Wife.

Emmy & Grammy nominee

Anne Jackson was an Emmy nominee in the Best Actress in a Drama category for her performance in the 1967 CBS Playhouse episode “Dear Friends.” She lost to her husband’s The Rose Tattoo co-star Maureen Stapleton in the teleplay Among the Paths to Eden, directed by Frank Perry and written by Truman Capote.

Besides “Dear Friends,” notable Anne Jackson TV appearances include:

• Glenn Jordan’s The Family Man (1979), as the wife of unfaithful husband Edward Asner, having an affair with the much younger Meredith Baxter (at the time, Meredith Baxter Birney).
• Alan Gibson’s Golden Globe-nominated and Emmy-winning drama A Woman Called Golda (1982), as Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir’s secretary Lou Kaddar, with Judy Davis as the young Meir, and Emmy and Golden Globe winner Ingrid Bergman as the older one.
• Robert Butler’s Emmy-nominated miniseries Out on a Limb (1987), as lawyer and social activist Bella Abzug, playing opposite Shirley MacLaine as herself.

Additionally, Anne Jackson, husband Eli Wallach, and a whole array of film and stage performers – Claire Bloom, Kathleen Turner, Al Pacino, Natasha Richardson, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, etc. – were Grammy nominees for the 2000 album The Complete Shakespeare Sonnets.

For her stage work, in 1956 Jackson was a Tony nominee as Best Featured Actress in a Play for Paddy Chayefsky’s Middle of the Night. In 1963, she took home a Best Actress Obie Award for two Off-Broadway plays: The Typists and The Tiger.

April 2015 update: Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson were married from 1948 until Wallach’s death at age 98 in June 2014. Jackson will be turning 89 next Sept. 3.

Photo of Eli Wallach and wife Anne Jackson on the Oscars’ Red Carpet: Ivan Vejar / © A.M.P.A.S.

Francis Ford Coppola and wife Eleanor Coppola: Academy Awards’ Red Carpet.

Francis Ford Coppola and wife Eleanor Coppola at the Oscars

Pictured above are Francis Ford Coppola and wife Eleanor Coppola on the 83rd Academy Awards’ Red Carpet outside the Kodak Theatre. Veteran filmmaker Coppola was the recipient of the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award at the Governors Awards in November 2010.

The Thalberg Award, a bust of the MGM producer and executive (and Norma Shearer husband) who died at age 37 in 1936, is given to “a creative producer whose body of work reflects a consistently high quality of motion picture production.”

Among the Francis Ford Coppola movies on which he is credited as a producer or executive producer are the following:

• American Graffiti (1973).
  Director: George Lucas.
  Cast: Richard Dreyfuss. Ron Howard. Paul Le Mat. Cindy Williams. Harrison Ford. Candy Clark. Mackenzie Phillips. Charles Martin Smith. Wolfman Jack. Bo Hopkins. Kathleen Quinlan. Terence McGovern.
• The Conversation (1974).
  Director: Francis Ford Coppola.
  Cast: Gene Hackman. John Cazale. Frederic Forrest. Allen Garfield. Cindy Williams. Michael Higgins. Elizabeth MacRae. Teri Garr. Harrison Ford. Robert Duvall. Billy Dee Williams.
• The Godfather: Part II (1974).
  Director: Francis Ford Coppola.
  Cast: Al Pacino. Diane Keaton. Robert Duvall. Robert De Niro. Talia Shire. Michael V. Gazzo. John Cazale. Lee Strasberg. Troy Donahue. Bruno Kirby. G.D. Spradlin. Frank Sivero. Marianna Hill. James Caan. Abe Vigoda. Fay Spain. Harry Dean Stanton. Danny Aiello. Kathleen Beller. Roger Corman. Sofia Coppola. Richard Matheson.
• Apocalypse Now (1979).
  Director: Francis Ford Coppola.
  Cast: Martin Sheen. Marlon Brando. Robert Duvall. Dennis Hopper. Frederic Forrest. Sam Bottoms. Harrison Ford. G.D. Spradlin. Laurence Fishburne. Albert Hall. Scott Glenn. Colleen Camp.
• The Black Stallion (1979).
  Director: Carroll Ballard.
  Cast: Kelly Reno. Mickey Rooney. Teri Garr. Clarence Muse. Hoyt Axton. Michael Higgins. Leopoldo Trieste.
  Rumble Fish (1983).
  Director: Francis Ford Coppola.
  Cast: Matt Dillon. Mickey Rourke. Diane Lane. Vincent Spano. Diana Scarwid. Dennis Hopper. Nicolas Cage. Chris Penn. Laurence Fishburne. Tom Waits. Sofia Coppola.
• The Godfather: Part III (1990).
  Director: Francis Ford Coppola.
  Cast: Al Pacino. Diane Keaton. Andy Garcia. Eli Wallach. Sofia Coppola. Talia Shire. Joe Mantegna. Bridget Fonda. Raf Vallone. Helmut Berger.
• Sleepy Hollow (1999).
  Director: Tim Burton.
  Cast: Johnny Depp. Christina Ricci. Miranda Richardson. Michael Gambon. Casper Van Dien. Richard Griffiths. Jeffrey Jones. Christopher Walken. Lisa Marie. Ian McDiarmid. Christopher Lee.
• Lost in Translation (2003).
  Director: Sofia Coppola.
  Cast: Bill Murray. Scarlett Johansson. Giovanni Ribisi. Anna Faris. Akiko Takeshita.
• Kinsey (2004).
  Director: Bill Condon.
  Cast: Liam Neeson. Laura Linney. Chris O’Donnell. Peter Sarsgaard. Timothy Hutton. Lynn Redgrave. John Lithgow. Tim Curry. Oliver Platt. Katharine Houghton.
  The Good Shepherd (2006).
  Director: Robert De Niro.
  Cast: Matt Damon. Angelina Jolie. Alec Baldwin. Tammy Blanchard. Billy Crudup. Michael Gambon. Keir Dullea. Robert De Niro. William Hurt. Timothy Hutton. Martina Gedeck. Gabriel Macht. Mark Ivanir. Joe Pesci. Eddie Redmayne. John Turturro. Joe Sessions. Lee Pace. Oleg Shtefanko.
• Marie Antoinette (2006).
  Director: Sofia Coppola.
  Cast: Kirsten Dunst. Jason Schwartzman. Judy Davis. Rip Torn. Asia Argento. Molly Shannon. Rose Byrne. Shirley Henderson. Danny Huston. Marianne Faithfull. Sebastian Armesto. Jamie Dornan. Aurore Clément. Mary Nighy. James Lance. Tom Hardy.
• Somewhere (2011).
  Director: Sofia Coppola.
  Cast: Stephen Dorff. Elle Fanning. Ellie Kemper. Michelle Monaghan. Chris Pontius.
• On the Road (2012).
  Director: Walter Salles.
  Cast: Sam Riley. Garrett Hedlund. Kristen Stewart. Amy Adams. Viggo Mortensen. Tom Sturridge. Kirsten Dunst. Alice Braga. Elisabeth Moss. Danny Morgan. Steve Buscemi. Terrence Howard. Michael Sarrazin.

Francis Ford Coppola Academy Awards

Unlike Honorary Oscar recipient Eli Wallach (and Anne Jackson), Francis Ford Coppola has been shortlisted for numerous competitive Academy Awards in various categories: a total of 14 nominations. He has taken home five Oscar statuettes.*

• Best Original Screenplay for William Friedkin’s Patton (1970). Shared with Edmund H. North.
• Best Adapted Screenplay for The Godfather (1972). Shared with Mario Puzo.
• As one of the producers of Best Picture winner The Godfather: Part II (1974). Shared with Gray Frederickson and Fred Roos.
• Best Director for The Godfather: Part II (1974).
• Best Adapted Screenplay for The Godfather: Part II (1974). Shared with Mario Puzo.

* As can be seen above (and in the image further below), Coppola directed Eli Wallach – playing Don Altobello – in The Godfather: Part III.

Francis Ford Coppola and Eleanor Coppola have been married since 1963.

April 2015 update: Francis Ford Coppola turned 76 last April 7. Eleanor Coppola will turn 78 next May 4.

Photo of Francis Ford Coppola and wife Eleanor Coppola on the Oscars’ Red Carpet: Ivan Vejar / © A.M.P.A.S.

Eli Wallach in ‘The Godfather Part III,’ with director Francis Ford Coppola’s sister Talia Shire.

The article “Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson, Francis Ford Coppola and Wife Photos” was initially posted in Feb. 2011. It has been updated and expanded to include a few more details about Wallach’s, Jackson’s, and Coppola’s careers.

Image of Eli Wallach in Baby Doll with Carroll Baker: Warner Bros.

Eli Wallach and Marilyn Monroe The Misfits image via the BFI website, featuring a lengthy 2005 interview with Wallach.

Anne Jackson in The Secret Life of an American Housewife publicity image: 20th Century Fox.

Still of Eli Wallach in The Godfather Part III with Francis Ford Coppola’s sister Talia Shire: Paramount Pictures.

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (A.M.P.A.S.) website.