RIP Nora Ephron - a stalwart

She wrote for the New York Post and called it a terrible newspaper in the era she was there. She made a name for herself by writing sharp profiles of people like Ayn Rand.

Some of these articles were controversial. In one, she criticized Betty Friedan for conducting a “thoroughly irrational” feud with Gloria Steinem; in another, she discharged a withering assessment of Women’s Wear Daily.

She fell into the movies quite by accident when she helped write "All the President's Men" with then husband Carl Bernstein. Even though the script wasn't used, she learned a lot. What followed were movies like Silkwood, You've Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, and Julie & Julia. Of course it was When Harry Met Sally that she got attention. The orgasm scene is still a favorite by everyone who watches it.

She wrote and directed Bewitched and Julie & Julia, just to name a few.

Ms. Streep called her a “stalwart.”

“You could call on her for anything: doctors, restaurants, recipes, speeches, or just a few jokes, and we all did it, constantly,” she wrote in her e-mail. “She was an expert in all the departments of living well.”

The producer Scott Rudin recalled that less than two weeks before her death, he had a long phone session with her from the hospital while she was undergoing treatment, going over notes for a pilot she was writing for a TV series about a bank compliance officer. Afterward she told him, “If I could just get a hairdresser in here, we could have a meeting.”

Ms. Ephron’s collection “I Remember Nothing” concludes with two lists, one of things she says she won’t miss and one of things she will. Among the “won’t miss” items are dry skin, Clarence Thomas, the sound of the vacuum cleaner, and panels on “Women in Film.”

The other list, of the things she will miss, begins with “my kids” and “Nick” and ends this way:

“Taking a bath

Coming over the bridge to Manhattan

Pie.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/27/movies/nora-ephron-essayist-screenwriter-and-director-dies-at-71.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Your humor, your sharp wit and your brilliance will be missed, Ms. Ephron. Rest in peace.