Italia Pennino Coppola (December 12, 1912 – January 21, 2004) was famous as the matriarch of the Coppola family. She was the mother of Francis Ford Coppola, August Coppola and Talia Shire. She made cameo appearances in each of the three Godfather films.
Biography[]
Italia Coppola as Signora Altobello in The Godfather Part III.
Born in New York City, she was one of six children of Anna (née Giaquinto) and composer Francesco Pennino, both of Naples, Italy. Her father was a composer of Italian songs, an importer of Italian films and a movie theater owner. She was born in an apartment over the family's Empire Theater in Brooklyn.
She was the wife of Carmine Coppola and the mother of academic August Coppola, filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and actress Talia Shire, as well as the maternal grandmother of actors Jason Schwartzman, Robert Carmine and writer Matthew Shire, and paternal grandmother of actors Nicolas Cage, Marc Coppola and directors Roman Coppola, Christopher Coppola and Sofia Coppola.
She was known for her Italian cooking and published a cookbook called Mama Coppola's Pasta Book. She is buried in San Fernando Mission Cemetery, alongside her husband. Her image has also appeared on the "Mammarella" pasta and sauce line, made by her son.
She made cameo appearances in her son's films The Godfather Part II (as the body of Carmela Corleone) and as Osvaldo Altobello's wife in The Godfather Part III.
In 2004, she died and was buried next to her husband, Carmine, who died in 1991.
