Nora Ephron: 1941-2012

Nora Ephron was born in New York City. Her parents, Henry and Phoebe Ephron, were also screenwriters. Nora modeled her self-deprecating and deadpan writing style on Dorothy Parker. She majored in political science and wrote for the weekly newspaper at Wellesley College, from which she graduated in 1962.

She then worked briefly as an intern in the White House of President John F. Kennedy. She moved to New York and became a mail girl at Newsweek for a year. In 1966, as a reporter for the New York Post, she broke the news that Bob Dylan had married Sara Lownds.

While married to Carl Bernstein in the mid-1970s, at her husband and Bob Woodward's request, she helped Bernstein re-write William Goldman's script for All the President's Men, because the two journalists were not happy with it. The Ephron-Bernstein script was not used in the end, but was seen by someone who offered Ephron her first screenwriting job, for a television movie. 

Nora Ephron enjoyed international success with the hit When Harry Met Sally... (1989), a romantic comedy directed by Rob Reiner, starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan. The success of Sleepless in Seattle (1993), co-written with younger sister, Delia, established Ephron as Hollywood's foremost creator of romantic comedies. In her film Julie & Julia (2009), she told the parallel stories of famed food writer Julia Child and of a contemporary Manhattan woman who sets out to cook her way through every recipe in Childs's classic Mastering the art of French Cooking.

She was married three times, to writer Dan Greenburg, to journalist Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame, and to screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi (Goodfellas, Casino, American Gangster.)

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)

Some articles by, or about, Nora Ephron at The New Yorker