In my unsophisticated tween mind, movies just came into being, fully formed; the work of Hollywood elves. But then I saw When Harry Met Sally, and suddenly realised: somebody wrote this. In a way, I fell in love with the idea of Nora Ephron long before I even knew who she was.
Ephron apparently lived by her screenwriter mother’s words that “everything is copy”. She mined her life, and the lives of others, to make great art. “That’s what your life is for,” she said in her final interview in 2012, “to feed the animal.” She was a reluctant Hollywood kid, born in New York, who moved back there to work as a writer and editor in the 60s, a hardscrabble way for a woman to make a living. She made the leap to essays, books, then movies – as screenwriter, director and producer. If you love romcoms, Ephron probably made one of your faves: You’ve Got Mail, maybe, or Sleepless In Seattle.
Ephron’s tone was smart and light, even when she was writing about distinctly dark things, such as her husband’s adultery (Heartburn) or corporate wrongdoing (Silkwood). Her biggest asset was her ear; her ability to pick up on the absurd and run with it. Her writing is bracing, grown up she makes me laugh and laugh. I often ask myself, sotto voce, “How might Nora write this?”
Her death at 71 in 2012 hit me hard; it had seemed as if she might live for ever. Thank heaven, then, that some of her wisdoms have been collected in a new book, Nora Ephron: The Last Interview And Other Conversations. When I imagine the perfect career, it’s summed up by Nora’s most famous line: I’ll have what she’s having.
