Nora Ephron (1941-2012)
Wednesday, June 27, 2012 at 9:23AM 
Goodbye NoraScreenwriter, director and all around wit Nora Ephron passed away yesterday at 71 from a long battle with leukemia. The Ephron movie I hold most personally dear (with the exception of Silkwood which is more of a Nichols/Streep thing for me) is Sleepless in Seattle (1993). When it came out on video I was in college working in a video store / pizza place. We always put movies on and they had to be safe for families so it was all G & PG titles. I'd play old movies and musicals and whatnot in the morning when people wouldn't complain about them but when it would get busier you'd have to have the new titles playing while they stuffed their faces full of hot melted cheese. Sleepless in Seattle was popular in heavy rotation. Loved that movie and always got a little heartsick right along with Meg Ryan, listening to that radio in her car.
My last Nora specific memory was the tickling experience of reading her brief spoof of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo in The New Yorker. I remember my smile turning to audible laughter (aka LOL'ing ) a third of the way through and increasing in frequency as its brilliance sank in. There was an after pang - "If she's still this funny, how come we don't get another When Harry Met Sally?"
Alternate title for Nora Movies: "You've Got Relatlonships"
I didn't know at the time that she had already been sick for a few years. And even if her filmography contains its fair share of head-scratchers, on the whole its a good one. Her reputation has only been unfairly diminished by the shortsighted modern disdain for the rom-com genre which she ruled for a time. (While it's true that this genre is currently at its nadir, some of the greatest films ever made belong to it - think screwball.)
This morning my thoughts turned to Ephron's screen muses. While she worked with Tom Hanks, John Travolta, and Steve Martin multiple times I wondered sadly how Meryl Streep and Meg Ryan, her two most prominent interpreters, were feeling today. I have no idea what their personal friendships were actually like -- though Ephron's amazing AFI tribute speech to Streep suggests that theirs might have been filled with nonstop hilarious banter.
Since Ephron wrote so well and often about romantic relationships, I like to frame the collaborations in that way. Let's call her screen romance with Meryl Streep (Silkwood, Heartburn and Julie & Julia) an "amorous friendship" -- one of those mostly chaste things with occassional "what if...?" flarings of passion. The screen romance with Meg Ryan (When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail, Hanging Up) on the other hand can only be interpreted as "marriage" --unmistakably public, fruitful and life-changing for both.
Nora ♥Meryl, Nora ♥ Meg
What's your favorite Nora & Meg movie? What will you most miss about Ephron's best work?
Recommended Reading
The New Yorker The Girl Who Fixed the Umlaut by Nora Ephron
Lists of Note "What I won't and will miss" by Nora Ephron
...and my two fav Ephron tributes: NPR's Monkey See and Stale Popcorn.
Reader Comments (16)
So sad to hear this news today...what great talent and wit...I love her Meryl AFI tribute...I have literally watched that on a loop many times (along with Tracey Ullman's tribute).
Julie and Julia was magic to me....both Meryl and Amy's segments!
I was really shocked to hear the news.
Based on the "Julie & Julia" Charlie Rose 60-minute long interview she seemed like an incredibly sweet and grounded person.
I've seen that interview many times and I really cannot believe she's gone :(
Although they tried for over a decade I don't think Norah and Meg ever managed to eclipse When Harry Met Sally.
Ryan was incredibly good in that film, and even twenty years on, it's still inexplicable to me that wasn't nominated for an Academy Award.
Rest In Peace Norah.
I loved Nora Ephron. I do not love Sleepless in Seattle (quite the opposite, in fact) but I adore You've Got Mail and watch it often. In fact, just last week, when my girlfriend brought me flowers (not daisies) I said, "don't you think daisies are the friendliest flower?"
The novel Heartburn had a lasting impact on my writing and I discussed it with my editor not long ago.
What 14-yo boy reads Heartburn by Nora Ephron. And, then makes a horrible key lime pie based on a recipe in the novel, and forces him family to eat it. This guy.
I don't have a direct quote, while Nora was a guest on Oprah, she said, she doesn't think she'll do death well, think Woody Allen's completely rationale fear of the inevitable. When I read she died, I immediately went to the memory of that interview.
I'm not really a huge fan of her work, except Silkwood and When Harry Met Sally, but whenever I saw her in interviews and appearances she seems like an extremely warm and hilarious person. R.I.P.
I saw "Sleepless in Seattle" hours before getting on a plane after a wonderful summer in the US. It always brings back warm memories...
corey. LOL. please tell us you also ate a piece.
joe fox -- i always thought that if that film had come slightly later in Meg's career. Or if she was maybe easier to like offscreen (I assume she was trouble or why would hollywood have turned on her so ridiculously fast once there was trouble) than it would have happened. I still remember realizing during WHEN A MAN LOVES A WOMAN years later that they just didn't like her. That year was kinda empty of usual type choices and they still didn't bite.
Oh man, for budgetary reasons I had to stop subscribing to the New Yorker a few years ago so I missed the Girl with the Umlaut but I do remember her hilarious take on No Country for Old Men.
I didn't love most of her movies but I loved her writing. Really sad.
I read the Girl Who Fixed the Umlaut without having read the Steig Larsson books it parodied (and still haven't) but was laughing out loud at work. Can't imagine the fits I would have been in if I'd actually read the source material - I call that damn good writing. (A pity that more of her "damn good writing" never made it to the screen, but such is Hollywood. If Ephron had been 30 years younger, she'd be writing for a Showtime series and more of her wit would probably be making its way to our small screens, I'd wager.)
I'm very fond of "This is my Life", the film she directed (and co-wrote with her sister Delia), in which Julie Kavner plays a single mother of two girls who becomes a stand-up comedian. The focus was not on the stand-up routines, but on the changes and stresses to the relationship of mother and daughters. (It had my mom - also a single mom - and myself in tears at one point.) It was also wonderfully witty and truthful about the older daughter's (Samantha Mathis) rather disappointing "Coming of age" experience, which was rare to see in a movie at the time. I think it deserves a second look, but it's not been released on DVD as far as I know.
The Girl Who Fixed the Umlaut had me rolling. I shouldn't be so surprised - even if she didn't hit the mark every time, When Harry Met Sally may be one of the best scripts ever written. Along with Woody Allen, she was one of the few writers trying to keep smart comedy alive, even when it didn't always work. RIP.
Janice -- you're alive! I remember that movie too (not well). sad how everyone thinks of movies as permanent and yet they really aren't. Especially when technology keeps changing the formats. So many movies will never be seen again.
I recently listened to the audiobooks of I Remember Nothing and also I Feel Bad About My Neck. Her writing was terrific, but her no-nonsense deadpan delivery (Nora was the narrator) really sold the books to me.
I actually think I've liked every Nora Ephron movie that I've seen. Some are great, some less so, but none of them are stupid.
I think I hated You've Got Mail (WHY would we want Meg to end up with Tom when he's such an ass?) almost as much as I love When Harry Met Sally. Julie & Julia would be 2nd (the Meryl parts were of course brilliant but she didn't get the Julie character right), then Sleepless in Seattle, and Silkwood and Heartburn seem like separate entities. I also liked This Is My Life but I haven't seen it in, oh, about 20 years so I don't know if I still would. Loved her New Yorker pieces, never read her collections of essays.
Anyway, she will be missed. Hers was a well-needed voice in popular culture.
Sad and tragic loss. Not a fan of all of her films ("Bewitched," "Julie & Julia," "Hanging Up," "You've Got Mail"), but when she nailed it, she really nailed it. I think her pinnacle was "When Harry Met Sally," and as far as modern rom-coms go, it set the standard for the rest of the field that's sadly not caught up to it in all of these years since. I've been watching some of her interviews, the Streep AFI tribute (so funny, you can just see her bristling deadpan, wit, and intelligence on full display there), and that New Yorker article that nailed the tone and prose of Larsson's novels to a T. I doubt that there will be many more female trailblazers like her in the future, and that's depressing. She really was a godsend for Meg Ryan, and her collaborations with Streep were memorable at least. At first I thought that Ephron directed "It's Complicated," but I mistook Ephron for Nancy Meyers. Anyway, I'm saddened by this loss, and I hope that some of her gems are revisited in light of this news. RIP.