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George Lucas was born George Walton Lucas, Jr. in Modesto, California in 1944. As a teen he loved car racing, but a bad accident just before high school graduation ended that dream, and he went to community college and got interested in film. He transferred to the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, where he became good friends with future filmmakers like John Milius and Stephen Spielberg. As a grad student he directed a short film, Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, which he later expanded into his first feature film, THX 1138. He won a scholarship that let him work on the set of Finian's Rainbow, which was being directed by Francis Ford Coppola. They became friends, and in 1969 they co-founded American Zoetrope, which produced Coppola's The Rain People, and Lucas' THX 1138, but the movies were not commercially successful. Coppola was hired to direct The Godfather in 1972, and Lucas then started Lucasfim, and he wrote and directed American Graffiti, based on his teen years in Modesto, and Coppola was the producer. The movie was a huge success, both critically and at the box office. Lucas next wanted to direct a re-make of Flash Gordon, but couldn't get the rights, and instead wrote Star Wars, an homage to 1930s serials. But the studio hated the idea, and they reluctantly agreed to finance the movie because of the huge success of American Graffiti, and because Lucas agreed to no director salary, in exchange for 40% of the profits and all merchandising rights (the studio thought there would be no profits!). To make the special effects, Lucas started a separate company ILM (Industrial Light & Magic), and another company Sprocket Systems (later Skywalker Sound) to do the editing and mixing. Of course Star Wars was an immense success, and we all know that Lucas made two hugely successful sequels, and later made the hugely successful Indiana Jones series with old friend Steven Spielberg. But Lucas became so busy with his various projects, and his Skywalker Ranch that he stopped directing movies after Star Wars, only coming out of retirement to direct the three "prequel" Star Wars movies from 1999 to 2005. While Lucas has certainly had a remarkable career, I can't help but feel sad that the world lost such a wonderful director when he had such great success with Star Wars, and I especially wonder what might have happened had THX 1138 and The Rain People been successes for American Zoetrope, and if Lucas and Coppola had remained working together over the next few decades ANDFrancis Ford Coppola was born in Detroit, Michigan, USA in 1939, but he mostly grew up in Queens, New York, where his dad, Carmine, was a composer and flautist. Francis had polio as a boy, and his father got him an 9mm camera and he made his first "movie" when he was ten. He later studied film at Hofstra and then UCLA. In 1960, he creatively took the Russian science fiction (sci-fi) movie, Nebo zovyot, and re-edited it with some with new footage, and it was released as Battle Beyond the Sun. Two years later, he made two "nudie" movies, The Bellboy and the Playgirls and Tonight for Sure. He signed with Roger Corman in 1963 as an assistant director on The Terror in 1963, and that same year he directed Dementia 13. He made the transition to mainstream movies as a screenwriter, with This Property Is Condemned and Is Paris Burning?. Those led to his next movie as a director (and screenwriter) of a bigger budget movie, the quirky You're a Big Boy Now, with a great soundtrack by John Sebastian and The Lovin' Spoonful. That led to his getting to direct Finian's Rainbow, a conventional big budget musical, in 1968 and it did not "fit" Coppola very well! The following year he wrote and directed The Rain People, with James Caan, Robert Duvall, and Shirley Knight, which was critically acclaimed, but did not do well at the box office. In 1969, Coppola and friend George Lucas started an independent production company American Zoetrope. In 1970, Coppola wrote the screenplay for Patton, and won an Oscar. In 1971, he produced George Lucas' first movie, THX 1138. In 1972, Coppola was hired to write and direct The Godfather (for which he was nominated for the Best Director Academy Award), and it was a huge success. This enabled him to produce George Lucas' second movie, American Graffiti, the following year. 1974 was an amazing year for Coppola! He wrote and directed both the sequel to The Godfather, and also The Conversation, one of the most interesting movies ever made! He also somehow found time to write the screenplay for The Great Gatsby! Coppola then undertook making an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and he chose to make it on location in the Phillipines. It took years to make, and although the resulting film, Apocalypse Now, had many great elements, it was a harrowing experience for all involved in its making. Coppola did not learn from his near disaster with Apocalypse Now and took on far too much starting in 1979. He executive produced The Black Stallion, Kagemusha, and Mishima, and he oversaw the U.S. re-release of Abel Gance's Napoleon, with a symphony orchestra directed by his father (I saw a performance of this in Los Angeles and thought it superb!). In 1982, Coppola invested all his money into the odd Las Vegas musical, One From the Heart. I lived in Las Vegas at that time, and Coppola accurately captured that unique city, but, alas, the movie did not find an audience, and Coppola was bankrupted. He was forced to direct two more conventional movies, The Outsiders and Rumble Fish, and both were successful. But his next movie, The Cotton Club was not, and he has only directed a dozen movies in the 26 years since, with varying degrees of success. Coppola is one of the finest directors and screenwriters of the past 40 years, and he has shown a remarkable loyalty to his family and close friends, using the same actors, and working with the same people over and over. Although he attempted more than he could manage to do on several occasions, he has a remarkable overall body of work!

Important Added Info: Note that this REPRODUCTION still has been personally autographed (signed) by BOTH George Lucas AND Francis Ford Coppola!

Note that this item was consigned to us by a man who was a major movie memorabilia dealer from the 1980s on. During that time, he would regularly purchase collections of movie memorabilia from both dealers and collectors, and in some of those collections he purchased autographed items, and over the years he did not re-sell any of the autographed items. Now he has gathered up together all of his autographed items and consigned them to us. So all of the items from this consignor we are auctioning were purchased by this dealer from longtime dealers and collectors, and we feel it is quite likely that the autograph on this item is authentic!

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