Nora Ephron

Writer

• Born: May 19, 1941
• Birthplace: New York, New York
• Died: June 26, 2012

Ephron worked as a journalist and a novelist. She was drawn to Hollywood to be a screenwriter, a film director, and a producer, and her most popular films are updated versions of the classic romantic comedies.

Early Life

Nora Ephron (NOHR-uh EH-frawn) was born in were chosen into a family of secular Jews. The firstborn child of playwrights Henry and Phoebe Ephron, Ephron was followed by three sisters, Delia, Hallie, and Amy, all writers. Three years following Ephron’s birth, the family moved to California, and her parents became screenwriters. As a result, Ephron grew up in Hollywood, where her parents entertained famous and creative people. She honed her wit, her sense of humor, and her storytelling skills at the family dinner table.

As a student at Beverly Hills High School, Ephron began her career in journalism as the editor of the school newspaper. In 1962, she graduated from Wellesley College, where she also edited the school paper. Ephron would later criticize the stereotypical and conventional nature of Wellesley and the low expectations the college projected for its students, all female. A political science major, she served as a White House intern during the John F. Kennedy administration.

After graduating from college, Ephron began reporting for the New York Post, and she remained there until 1968. In 1967, she married writer Dan Greenburg. After marriage, she left reporting and earned a living as a freelance writer, publishing in such major women’s magazines as Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, and McCall’s. She published her first collection of essays, Wallflower at the Orgy, in 1970. Between 1972 and 1976, she worked for both Esquire magazine and New York Magazine, serving as columnist and editor. Her second collection of essays, Crazy Salad, was published in 1975.

Ephron married her second husband, Carl Bernstein, a journalist known for his reporting of the Watergate scandal of the Richard Nixon White House, in 1976. The marriage ended because of Bernstein’s infidelity with Margaret Jay, daughter of the British prime minister and wife to a British ambassador to the United States. At the time, Ephron was pregnant with the couple’s second child, Max. Their first son, Jacob, was still an infant. Ephron documented the experience in her thinly veiled autobiographical novel, Heartburn, published in 1983, and later filmed with Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.

Ephron’s third collection of essays, Scribble Scribble, was published in 1978. After her second divorce, she turned to screenwriting in order to support her two sons. In 1987, she married her third husband, Nicholas Pileggi, also a writer.

Life’s Work

Although she had initially avoided screenwriting as an act of rebellion against her alcoholic parents, Ephron capitulated after her divorce from Bernstein. As the single mother of two young children, she decided that working in film not only would allow her to work from home but also would be more lucrative. Her first project was the screenplay for Silkwood (1983), coauthored with Alice Arlen. The screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award. Her next project was to adapt her best-selling novel, Heartburn, which appeared on the screen in 1986 to modest success.

One of Ephron’s most successful films, When Harry Met Sally . . . (1989), earned her a second Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay and marked her entry into the genre of romantic comedy. The film, directed by Rob Reiner and starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, chronicles the twelve-year relationship between Harry and Sally, two New Yorkers who marry at film’s end. Early in the relationship, Harry remarks to Sally that friendship between men and women is impossible. Sally’s most memorable scene involves illustrating a fake orgasm at a restaurant; after which another patron (played by Reiner’s mother) says to a waitress, “I’ll have what she’s having.” The film popularized the terms “high-maintenance” and “transitional person.” Ephron’s script won best original screenplay from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

Ephron was nominated for an Academy Award a third time for her screenplay for 1993’s Sleepless in Seattle. She also directed the film, which stars Tom Hanks and Ryan, who play Sam and Annie. Sam’s son, Jonah, calls a radio talk show on Christmas Eve, worried about his father, who is not recovering from the loss of Jonah’s mother. Annie, who is engaged to Walter, hears the program and develops an interest in Sam. The couple meet at the top of the Empire State Building but not until the end of the film, which is permeated with references to the Hollywood classic An Affair to Remember (1957).

Ephron’s next film, Mixed Nuts (1994), a comedy with Steve Martin, which she directed and cowrote with her sister, Delia Ephron, was not successful. It was followed by Michael (1996), starring John Travolta, who plays an earthly angel. Ephron returned to romantic comedy in 1998 with You’ve Got Mail, a film that reunited Hanks and Ryan, who play Joe Fox and Kathleen Kennedy, two rival bookstore owners who meet online and fall in love, not knowing each other’s true identity. This film is a remake of The Shop Around the Corner (1940), which had also been remade into In the Good Old Summertime (1949). Ephron again cowrote the script with her sister, Delia, and Ephron produced and directed the film.

One of Ephron’s less successful romantic comedies was Bewitched, with Will Ferrell and Nicole Kidman, produced in 2005. The film is a postmodern version of the 1960’s television series. It lost money at the box office. Returning to her journalistic roots, Ephron published a collection of essays, I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman, in 2006. The collection was a best seller. Julie and Julia, which Ephron wrote and directed, was released in 2009 and was based on the blog and novel of Julie Powell and the memoir of chef Julia Child.

Significance

Although educated in the early 1960’s at Wellesley, a women’s college that prepared its students for marriage first and for careers second, Ephron has been one of the few women successfully to navigate Hollywood, working as screenwriter, producer, and director of blockbuster films. She has also produced articulate journalism, covering both politics and popular culture, at the same time infusing her work with humor, a feminist slant, and her unique personal voice. The daughter of a powerful working mother, Ephron managed to balance family and career, adjusting the direction of her employment to the practical needs of her children.

Bibliography

Frascella, Lawrence. “Nora Ephron.” Rolling Stone, July 8, 1993, 73-75. Interview with Ephron following the release of Sleepless in Seattle.

Hurd, Mary G. Women Directors and Their Films. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2007. Summarizes Ephron’s work in film, most specifically as a director.

Kingston, Anne. “Nora Ephron: A Conversation with Anne Kingston.” Maclean’s 122, nos. 29/30 (August 3, 2009): 14-15. Interview following the release of Julie and Julia, Ephron’s second film with actor Meryl Streep.

Levy, Ariel. “Nora Knows What to Do.” New Yorker 85, no. 20 (July 6, 2009): 60. A detailed profile of Ephron published after the release of Julie and Julia. Includes interview material from Ephron’s sister, Delia Ephron, and her husband, Nick Pileggi.

McCreadie, Marsha. Women Who Write the Movies; From Frances Marion to Nora Ephron. New York: Carol, 1994. Largely a gender study, with references to Ephron sprinkled throughout and much of the final chapter devoted to Ephron’s screenwriting career.