Originally published by L.S.Media June 27th 2012. 
Hollywood legend, Nora Ephron, has passed away at the age of 71.
Nora Ephron was one of the most influential women to break the clique of male Hollywood scriptwriting. Her style, sophistication and ready wit was stamped throughout her award winning screenplays such as When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle and touched millions of hearts and won her, not just awards but a legion of fans who still to this day use the famous quote from the restaurant scene from When Harry Met Sally.
Nora Ephron was born in 1941, the eldest of four children in a Jewish family and at the age of four the family moved to Beverly Hills where she would graduate from Beverly Hills High School. In 1958, she became interested in journalism and started to follow in the footsteps of her parents in the written word. Henry and Phoebe Ephron wrote the play and the Jimmy Stewart film Take Her, She’s Mine, which they based on their then 22 year old daughter’s letters home.
If Nora Ephron’s writing was colourful then her personal life was just as interesting. Twice divorced, famously the second time from Carl Bernstein, one of the two journalists who broke the Watergate scandal which helped bring down disgraced President Nixon. When she found out that Bernstein had been having an affair with a personal friend she was inspired to write the novel Heartburn and which was made into a film three years later and starred Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. Her third and final marriage was to noted screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi and they were married for more than 20 years.
Due to her marriage to Carl Bernstein, Nora claimed to be one of a handful of people that knew the real identity of Deep Throat, the source of for the news articles written by her husband during the Watergate scandal. Although she had been known to tell many people of her belief that is was Mark Felt, no one took serious note of her during the early years.
However it is for her screenplays and writing that Nora Ephron will be best remembered. The classic film Silkwood, which starred Cher, Kurt Russell and Meryl Streep, which was inspired by the true-life story of Karen Silkwood who died whilst investigating alleged wrongdoing at the McGee plutonium plant was soon followed by Heartburn and then in 1989 by When Harry Met Sally. This film saw Nora join the elite of Hollywood scriptwriters and was followed up by My Blue Heaven in 1990, Sleepless in Seattle in 1993and Bewitched in 2005.
During her time writing she quite rightly won or was nominated for many awards including best screenplay at the B.A.F.T.As , Writers Guild of America and the Academy Awards.
Nora Ephron’s six word biography in Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure by Larry Smith summed up her life and manages to raise a smile in a similar vein to her classic films. “Secret to life, marry an Italian.”
Nora Ephron, born May 19th 1941, New York City. Died June 26th 2012, New York City.
Ian D. Hall