Nicolas Kim Coppola aka Nicolas Cage is an American actor born on January 7, 1964 in Long Beach California to August Coppola (a professor in literature) and Joy Vogelsang (a dancer and choreographer). He has two older brothers, Marc “The Cope” Coppola, a New York radio personality and Christopher Coppola, a director. He is the nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola and actress Talia Shire and is cousins to directors Roman Coppola and Sofia Coppola and actors Robert Carmine and Jason Schwatzman. As a youth he used to visit his uncle at his San Francisco home and at the age of 15 during a summer class at the American Conservatory he fell in love with acting. Dropped out from Beverly Hills High School (the same school where other entertainers such as Slash, Angelina Jolie and Lenny Kravitz went to) and pursued a career in acting making his television debut in 1981.
He changed his name to Nicolas Cage to separate his identity from that of his famous uncle choosing the last name Cage from a comic book superhero Luke Cage. Nicolas was well known for his edgy personality on and off stage. He was said to have two teeth removed during the filming of the movie “Birdy” in 1984, had his arm slashed for Racing With the Moon in 1984 and is said to have swallowed a live cockroach for the movie, “Vampire’s Kiss” in 1992.
Nicolas has been married three times, first with Patricia Arquette then to Lisa Marie Presley (the only daughter and child of Elvis Presley) and then to his present wife Alice Kim Cage who is the mother of his son Kal-El (born October 3, 2005) who was named after Superman’s birth name from planet Krypton.
Nicloas has won numerous awards beginning with Independent Spirit Award in 1989, he has been nominated for an Academy Award and won once for this role as the suicidal alholic in Leaving Las Vegas. Most of low profile films did not perform well in the box office, the thriller 8mm in 1999 was not a box office hit and is not considered a cult film. For his lead role in Captain Corelli’s Mandolin he learned to play the Mandolin from scratch, the movie did not appear to be a chart topping blockbuster unlike this mainsteam action/adventure movies. In 2007, the movie “Ghost Rider” was a huge success earning more than $45 million during its first week and over $208 million worlwide.
Nicolas Cage movies in the adventure/action genre seemed to have garnered much financial success, the second highest movie where he plays the role of a weird historian, National Treasure is set to have a 3rd sequel in post production as of 2009. He has appeared on a total of 58 movies of various genres and in the movie Sonny (his debut as a director)he played the role of Acid Yellow.
