Eleanor Coppola, the wife of famed film director Francis Ford Coppola and an acclaimed documentarian in her own right, has passed away at the age of 87, the Associated Press reported.

According to a statement from the Coppola family, she died on Friday while surrounded by loved ones at her home in Rutherford, California, but no cause of death was given.

Eleanor was the matriarch of the filmmaking Coppola family including her legendary director husband plus son Roman and daughter Sofia. Her eldest son, Gian-Carlo, had also been involved in filmmaking before his untimely death at the age of 22 in a 1986 boating accident.

Best known for documenting the making of "Apocalypse Now"

The New York Times reported that Eleanor Jessie Neil was born in May 1936 in Los Angeles, California, and was largely raised by her mother, Delphine, after her father, Clifford, a political cartoonist for the local newspaper, passed away when she was 10.

She graduated from high school in Huntington Beach in 1954 and earned a bachelor's degree in art from UCLA in 1959, and met her future husband four years later while working as an assistant art director on a low-budget horror film he was directing in 1963, and they were married in Las Vegas later that year after she realized she'd become pregnant.

While always an artist, Eleanor began her career as a documentarian, for which she is best known, in 1979 when she accompanied Coppola to the Philippines to chronicle the arduous and lengthy process of directing and filming one of his greatest works, "Apocalypse Now."

"Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse," which was released to critical acclaim in 1991, won an Emmy award the following year for its incredible behind-the-scenes view of the making of the classic film.

Wrote and directed other documentaries and films

According to her IMDb page, Eleanor Coppola also directed a few other notable documentaries of her famous family's filmmaking processes, including her husband's 1997 film "John Grisham's 'The Rainmakers'" and daughter Sofia's "The Virgin Suicides" in 1999 and "Marie Antoinette" in 2006.

She also wrote and directed two narrative films of her own, "Paris Can Wait" in 2016 and "Love is Love is Love" in 2020, to mixed reviews.

And, though she was not directly involved in any of the "Godfather" films directed by her husband, actress Diane Keaton, who played the wife of Al Pacino's Michael Corleone character, credited Eleanor as being her inspiration and model for the role of Kay Corleone, according to The Times.

"An extraordinary and gifted person"

NPR reported that aside from the documentaries, Eleanor Coppola was an accomplished artist with works on display in numerous galleries and museums, a costume designer, a writer, and a wine-maker, as she was heavily involved in managing the Napa Valley winery her husband purchased in the 1970s.

"Eleanor was an extraordinary and gifted person who encouraged everyone with whom she came in contact," Lynn Hershman Leeson, an artist and filmmaker who was a friend and collaborator, told the outlet of Coppola. "Her generosity and spirit profoundly resonated and enhanced those fortunate enough to know her. The gift of her art, in many disciplines, remain as her great legacy."

Per the AP, Coppola is survived by her husband, her son and daughter and their spouses, six grandchildren and one great-grandchild, plus her brother William and his wife.