Nicolas Cage is actually a Coppola and grew up in Los Angeles. Since he came from such a prominent family, did he go to a boarding or private school?
Nicolas Cage went to high school at Beverley Hills High School. This high school is known for having tons of celebrity alumni including Jamie Lee Curtis, Richard Dreyfuss, Carrie Fisher, Gina Gershon, Angelina Jolie, Lenny Kravitz, Logan Lerman, and so many more.
You can learn more below about BHHS, Nicolas Cage’s time at BHHS, and why the school has so many famous alumni.
Beverley Hills High School, What’s the Buzz About?
Beverley Hills High School seems to be a treasure trove of famous alumni in the realms of entertainment. As mentioned above, there have been tons of famous alumni from the high school.
While you may think that it is some sort of fancy private school, it’s actually a public school that just so happens to be located in the right spot. It is actually the only public school in the Beverley Hills area.
However, Beverley Hills is also an area where most of the world’s famous actors, directors, and producers live. A lot of famous people’s kids attend the school and its location makes it quite easy for any attendee to get into the entertainment industry.
After all, say you want to become an actor it becomes a lot easier when your best friend’s mom happens to be a producer. This probably explains why there are so many famous alumni from the school.
One other very interesting fact about the school is that it is the high school where the 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life was filmed. That’s right the high school that has the basketball court over top of the swimming pool is Beverley Hills High School and the pool is still under the basketball court today.
Some of Beverley Hills High School Alum
As we mentioned above, there are a ton of famous people who attended BHHS in their teens. From Carrie Fisher to Angelina Jolie to Richard Dreyfuss, the school was a plethora of future celebs.
So what was it like to go there and who else attended. Well, People actually wrote a piece where they interviewed former classmates of some of these celebrities for the school’s 90th Anniversary.
According to Angelina Jolie’s former high school friend Sam Nazarian, she hung out with older kids and was into the goth culture. David Kohan, the creator of Will & Grace recalled that Lenny Kravitz was a cool sweet drummer in his brother’s band.
You can watch Nicolas Cage be given the Best Actor award at Beverley Hills High School while he was still a student there in the below video.
David Schwimmer, another former alum, was apparently best friends with Jonathon Silverman who starred in Weekend at Bernie’s. Both Betty White and Pauly Shore were also alumni of the famous school.
Other notable alumni that haven’t been listed yet include Tori Spelling, Monica Lewinsky, Crispin Glover, Jenji Kohan, Leighton Meester, Breckin Meyer, Rob Reiner, and Slash. Those are just the uber-famous alumni too.
Nicolas Cage in High School
Back when he was in high school, Nicolas Cage wasn’t going by the name Nicolas Cage. He was actually going by his given name Nicolas Coppola but all his friends just called him Nic.
He is the nephew of famous director Francis Ford Coppola. When Nic Cage decided he wanted to pursue a career as an actor he changed his last name to Cage so that people couldn’t accuse him of poor acting or the industry of nepotism.
While he was in high school he was apparently very interesting. In the People article from above, David Kohan recalled “Nic Cage and I were in a history class together. I remember we were doing a section on Cro-Magnon man, and we had to write a paper on it. And we all wrote our one-page, dry little factoid papers, and Nic wrote an eight-page paper from the perspective of Cro-Magnon man waking up in a cave. I’m like, ‘That guy’s interesting.’”
Mat Mutchnik, the other creator of Will & Grace, has also elaborated that he was still in the closet at the time but thought that Nicolas Cage had the body of a man when he was only a teen. Apparently, he was a big heartthrob for many at the high school.
Lenny Kravitz and Crispin Glover both graduated in the same class as Nicolas Cage. The latter was actually one of Cage’s best friends. He and Kravitz weren’t friends though.