Hollywood continues to be run by white males. Its directors
are primarily males –and white as well. While female writers abound, not many
had abilities that Nora Ephron had.
Plus, she was multi-talented, being an essayist, a playwright, a
journalist, a novelist, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter and a movie director.
She was unique within the Hollywood power structure, for she
pretty much set the standard for contemporary romantic comedies. Plus, as a
woman she became the voice for them in movies, even when the studios were not
really pursuing that demographic. She can be credited for helping break down
those barriers.
When she died on June 26 at age 71 from pneumonia, Hollywood
moguls and fans were shocked. No one knew she had been ill, as the pneumonia
was a complication from the disease she had been quietly battling since 2006,
acute myeloid leukemia.
She earned three Oscar nominations for her screenplays, Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless
in Seattle (which she also directed). She also wrote and directed Mixed Nuts, Michael , You’ve Got Mail,
Lucky Numbers, Bewitched and what would be her last big screen effort, 2009’s Julie & Julia. Her 1986 re-teaming
with Meryl Streep was Heartburn, based
on her book about the break-up of her marriage to Watergate investigative
journalist Carl Bernstein.
But it was Sleepless
in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally
where her true strengths were on display, a self-deprecating woman who brought strong,
but appealing characters life, and who tackled relationship issues with a comic
insight few had done before.
Ephron always claimed it was her parents that gave her the
ability to find humor in almost anything, especially her dad. "They were
funny and they believed that everything was copy," Ephron said in 2009.
"They believed that anything in life could be turned into a story, which
is really the first rule of humor. I don't think you can get through almost
anything without humor." Henry and Phoebe Ephron were Hollywood royalty, having
written screenplays for classic films as Carousel,
Desk Set and There's No Business Like Show Business. Sadly, both her parents
were alcohols, with her mother dying in 1971 at the age of 57.
As noted, Ephron was married three times, Dan Greenburg,
Bernstein (where she had two sons, Jacob and Max) and screenwriter Nicholas
Pileggi, who she wed in 1987. She also survived by three sisters.
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