Nora Ephron

Birthday: 19 May 1941, New York City, New York, USA

Height: 165 cm

Nora Ephron was educated at Wellesley College, Massachusetts. She was an acclaimed essayist (Crazy Salad 1975), novelist (Heartburn 1983), and had written screenplays for several popular films, all featuring strong female characters, such as anti-nuclear activist Karen Silkwood (Silkwood (1983), co-written with Alice Arlen) and a mobster's feisty independent daughter Cookie Voltecki (Cookie (1989), also co-written with Arlen). Ephron's hard-headed sensibilities helped make Rob Reiner's When Harry Met Sally... (1989) a clear-eyed view of modern romance, and she earned an Oscar nomination for her original screenplay.Ephron made her directorial debut with the comedy This Is My Life (1992), co-scripted by her sister Delia Ephron, which starred Julie Kavner as a single mother who struggles to establish herself as a stand-up comedienne. Ephron followed up by helming and co-writing Sleepless in Seattle (1993), a romantic comedy in which lovers Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are separated for most of the film. Less about love than about love in the movies, the film drew inspiration from the beloved shipboard romance An Affair to Remember (1957), starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr.Ephron was the daughter of stage and screen-writing team Henry Ephron and Phoebe Ephron, who used her infancy as the subject of their play "Three's a Family" and based their comedy Take Her, She's Mine (1963) on letters their daughter wrote them from college. Their screenplays include There's No Business Like Show Business (1954), Carousel (1956) and Desk Set (1957). Formerly married to novelist Dan Greenburg and investigative journalist Carl Bernstein, Ephron was wed to crime journalist and screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi, at the time of her passing, who wrote such films as Goodfellas (1990). Show less «

Summer bachelors, like summer breezes, are never as cool as they pretend to be.

When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your li...Show more »

When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. Show less «

[on feminine hygiene aids] There are a lot of men who manufacture the product who are so reluctant t...Show more »

[on feminine hygiene aids] There are a lot of men who manufacture the product who are so reluctant to talk straight about it that you can spend hours with them and not hear one anatomical phrase. They speak of 'the problem'. They speak of 'the area where the problem exists'. Every so often a hard-core word slides into the conversation. Vagina, maybe. Or sometimes from someone particularly scientific or candid, a vulva or two. Show less «

One of the few advantages to not being beautiful is that one usually gets better-looking as one gets...Show more »

One of the few advantages to not being beautiful is that one usually gets better-looking as one gets older; I am, in fact, at this very moment gaining my looks. Show less «

I don't care who you are. When you sit down to write the first page of your screenplay, in your head...Show more »

I don't care who you are. When you sit down to write the first page of your screenplay, in your head, you're also writing your Oscar acceptance speech. Show less «

A successful parent is one who raises their child to be able to pay for their own psychoanalysis.

With any child entering adolescence, one hunts for signs of health, is desperate for the smallest in...Show more »

With any child entering adolescence, one hunts for signs of health, is desperate for the smallest indication that the child's problems will never be important enough for a television movie. Show less «

I try to write parts for women that are as complicated and interesting as women actually are.

Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admi...Show more »

Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy. Show less «

Beware of men who cry. It's true that men who cry are sensitive to and in touch with feelings, but t...Show more »

Beware of men who cry. It's true that men who cry are sensitive to and in touch with feelings, but the only feelings they tend to be sensitive to and in touch with are their own. Show less «

My mother wanted us to understand that the tragedies of your life one day have the potential to be c...Show more »

My mother wanted us to understand that the tragedies of your life one day have the potential to be comic stories the next. Show less «

My mother was a good recreational cook, but what she basically believed about cooking was that if yo...Show more »

My mother was a good recreational cook, but what she basically believed about cooking was that if you worked hard and prospered, someone else would do it for you. Show less «

The desire to get married, which - I regret to say, I believe is basic and primal in women - is foll...Show more »

The desire to get married, which - I regret to say, I believe is basic and primal in women - is followed almost immediately by an equally basic and primal urge - which is to be single again. Show less «

In my sex fantasy, nobody ever loves me for my mind.

What will happen to sex after liberation? Frankly, I don't know. It is a great mystery to all of us.

Whenever I get married, I start buying Gourmet magazine.

What my mother believed about cooking is that if you worked hard and prospered, someone else would d...Show more »

What my mother believed about cooking is that if you worked hard and prospered, someone else would do it for you. Show less «

If pregnancy were a book they would cut the last two chapters.

[on success] Most of us live our lives devoid of cinematic moments.

I am continually fascinated at the difficulty intelligent people have in distinguishing what is cont...Show more »

I am continually fascinated at the difficulty intelligent people have in distinguishing what is controversial from what is merely offensive. Show less «

As far as the men who are running for president are concerned, they aren't even people I would date.

Nora Ephron

Nora Ephron's FILMOGRAPHY

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