Nora Ephron biography

Synopsis

Early Career

Nora Ephron was born on May 19, 1941 in New York, New York. A talented writer and director, Ephron is known for her successful romantic comedies, such as When Harry Met Sally (1989) and Sleepless in Seattle (1993). The daughter of writers, she grew up in Los Angeles, feeling much like an outsider. She went east to go to school at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.

Gifted with a sharp wit, Ephron first made her mark as an essayist. In 1970, her articles collected and published in 1970's Wallflower at the Orgy and 1975's Crazy Salad. Her first novel, Heartburn (1983), drew inspiration from the end of her second marriage and was later made into a film starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.

Commercial Success

Around this time, Ephron made the leap into films, writing the screenplay for the drama Silkwood (1983). It earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay. While that film received much praise, she really hit box office gold with her screenplay for When Harry Met Sally, starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan in the title roles. Audiences and critics alike responded enthusiastically to the well-crafted exploration into whether a man and a woman can be just friends and the relationship that develops between the lead characters. She received her second Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay for this engaging, humorous film.

In 1992, Ephron directed her first film, This Is My Life. The film was generally well-received, with Time magazine calling it a "charming and quietly confident movie" that is both "adorable and unsentimental." This family drama centered on a single mother who is pursuing a career in stand-up comedy. Ephron co-wrote the screenplay with her sister, Delia Ephron.

The next year, Ephron directed and wrote the wildly successful Sleepless in Seattle, which featured Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks as two people who live on opposite coasts and fall in love after Ryan hears Hanks on the radio and tracks him down. The film earned more than $120 million at the box office, once again showing Hollywood that Ephron was a formidable filmmaker. She also scored her third Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay.

Ryan and Hanks reunited for another Ephron film, 1998's You've Got Mail, which played the romantic possibilities created on the anonymity of the Internet. The two played business rivals who don't know that they had become friends online. The two opposing relationships unfold during the course of the film.