Nora Ephron, RIP

Photo from Wikipedia: Nora Ephron with her husband Nicholas Pileggi

I will miss screenwriter, director, bi-coastal wit Nora Ephron as though I had lost my own big sister. (I have no sisters.) For decades she showed the way for women like me. What would it be like to fall in love, in a romantic but modern way, with laughs?  What is it about our necks, exactly, that signifies the end of that long trail ride that marks our days as we age, no matter our looks at 16, our accomplishments at 40, or the amount of fabulous adventures we have lived, our joys and sorrows? I so loved the article she wrote for The New York Times Magazine a couple of years ago, describing her creative and neurotic Hollywood screenwriter parents, her privileged upbringing, and their trials as a family. It made her all the more real and dimensional, in a world that so celebrates success, vanity, and the perks that come with them as though they are secret blessings bestowed at birth.

According to her son Jacob Bernstein, Nora Ephron died at 71 of pneumonia brought on by acute myeloid leukemia.

Great quote: “Why do people write books that say it’s better to be older than to be younger?” she wrote in I Feel Bad About My Neck, her 2006 best-selling collection of essays. “It’s not better. Even if you have all your marbles, you’re constantly reaching for the name of the person you met the day before yesterday.”

Political claim to fame: In an essay for The New York Times in 2003, she said she may have been the only intern never hit on by President John F. Kennedy.

Better political claim to fame:  Ephron said she was among a handful of people who knew the identity of Deep Throat, the source for news articles written by her husband Carl Bernstein during the Watergate scandal.^[13] Ephron said she had guessed the identity of Deep Throat through clues left by Bernstein.^[13] For example, Bernstein referred to the source as "My Friend", the same initials as Mark Felt, whom some suspected to be Bernstein's source.^[13]

Most remembered movie scene: In “When Harry Met Sally” Ms. Ryan’s table-pounding faked-orgasm scene with Mr. Crystal at Katz’s Delicatessen on the Lower East Side prompted a middle-aged woman (played by Estelle Reiner) sitting nearby to say to her waiter, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

Another reason I love her: From The New York Times today: "She was also fussy about her hair and made a point of having it professionally blow-dried twice a week. 'It’s cheaper by far than psychoanalysis and much more uplifting,' Ms. Ephron said."

See more about the essayist, humorist, director, and screenwriter at http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/26/showbiz/nora-ephron-obit/index.html?hpt=hp_c1 and http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001188/ and
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/27/movies/nora-ephron-essayist-screenwriter-and-director-dies-at-71.html?_r=1&amp

Filmography

• (1983) Silkwood (writer)
• (1986) Heartburn (writer, novel)
• (1989) When Harry Met Sally... (writer, associate producer)
• (1989) Cookie (writer, executive producer)
• (1990) My Blue Heaven (writer, executive producer)
• (1992) This Is My Life (director, writer)
• (1993) Sleepless in Seattle (director, writer)
• (1994) Mixed Nuts (director, writer)
• (1996) Michael (director, writer, producer)
• (1998) Strike! / The Hairy Bird / All I Wanna Do (executive producer)
• (1998) You've Got Mail (director, writer, producer)
• (2000) Hanging Up (writer, producer)
• (2000) Lucky Numbers (director, producer)
• (2005) Bewitched (director, writer, producer)
• (2009) Julie & Julia (director, writer, producer)

Awards & nominations

• (1979) Perfect Gentlemen -Best Television Feature or Miniseries- Edgar Allan Poe Awards (Nominated)
• (1984) Silkwood -Best Drama Written Directly for Screen- Writers Guild of America Awards (Nominated)
• (1984) Silkwood -Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for Screen- Academy Awards (Nominated)
• (1990) When Harry Met Sally -Best Screenplay for Motion Picture- Golden Globes (Nominated)
• (1990) When Harry Met Sally -Best Original Screenplay- BAFTA Awards (Won)
• (1990) When Harry Met Sally -Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for Screen- Academy Awards (Nominated)
• (1990) When Harry Met Sally -Best Screenplay Written Directly for Screen- Writers Guild of America Awards (Nominated)
• (1994) Sleepless in Seattle -Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for Screen- Academy Awards (Nominated)
• (1994) Sleepless in Seattle -Best Original Screenplay- BAFTA Awards (Nominated)
• (1994) Sleepless in Seattle -Best Screenplay Written Directly for Screen- Writers Guild of America (Nominated)
• (1994) Crystal Award- Women in Film Crystal Awards (Won)
• (1999) You've Got Mail -Best Motion Picture Comedy or Musical- Satellite Awards (Nominated)
• (2003) Ian McLellan Hunter Award - Writers Guild of America Awards (Won)
• (2006) Bewitched -Worst Screenplay- Razzie Awards (Nominated)
• (2009) Julie & Julia -Best Screenplay, Adapted- Satellite Awards (Nominated)
• (2009) Golden Apple Award- Casting Society of America (Won)
• (2010) Julie & Julia -Best Screenplay, Adapted- Writers Guild of America Awards (Nominated)^[17]

Essay collections

• Crazy Salad 
• Wallflower at the Orgy 
• (2010) I Remember Nothing: And other Reflections 
• (2006) I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman 
• (1975) The Boston Photographs