Nora Ephron Profile

Nora Ephron has succeeded as a director and writer of feature films, a field that was closed to women only a generation ago. Her early work as a journalist and essayist won her a reputation for sharp-eyed social observation and sharp-tongued humor. They also identified some of her favorite subjects: New York City, food, and the baffling ways of men and women in love.

She was pregnant with her second child when her husband left her, and she found herself at home with two babies to take care of while trying to break into screenwriting. In 1983, her script for the film Silkwood was nominated for an Oscar, and her novel Heartburn, a comic fictionalization of the end of her marriage, became a bestseller. Ephron's original screenplay, When Harry Met Sally, solidified her reputation as a screenwriter, but she wanted something more. She soon made her name as a director with Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail, runaway successes that established her as Hollywood's premier creator of modern romantic comedies.

Her 2006 book of essays, I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts On Being a Woman, topped the New York Times hardcover best-seller list for over nine months. Although her subject was the aging process, her approach to the human condition was unchanged. "When you slip on a banana peel, people laugh at you," she explains. "But when you tell people you slipped on a banana peel, it's your laugh."