This oldest daughter of screenwriters Henry and Phoebe Ephron originally intended to avoid following in her parents wake and chose to head East for college and a career in journalism. Nora Ephron spent five years as a reporter at the NEW YORK POST before making her mark as an essayist and practitioner of the "New Journalism" prevalent in the early 1970s. Skewering such pop culture figures as Betty Friedan and Gail Sheehy, she quickly became an in demand writer, eventually joining the staff of both ESQUIRE and NEW YORK. Her first collection of essays. "Wallflower at the Orgy" was published in 1970 and she earned notable praise for her second, "Crazy Salad: Some Thing About Women" published in 1975.
Ephron has stated that she was lured into writing scripts because it seemed to be in vogue and she began by contributing to the short-lived 1973 ABC sitcom "Adam's Rib". She penned the caper TV-movie "Perfect Gentlemen" (CBS, 1978) which teamed Lauren Bacall, Ruth Gordon, Sandy Dennis and Lisa Pelikan as women desperately in need of cash who plan a $1 million heist. Ephron garnered much press over her first novel, "Heartburn" a 1983 roman a clef about the breakup of her second marriage to journalist Carl Bernstein. Segueing to the big screen, she came to be known for creating strong central roles for women. evidenced by the Oscar-nominated script (co-written with Alice Arlen) of "Silkwood" (1983), Mike Nichols' biopic of anti-nuclear activist Karen Silkwood (portrayed by Meryl Streep). Nichols agreed to film "Heartburn" (1986), casting Streep in the role based on the author. Ephron continued to create feisty women's roles including a mobster's daughter in "Cookie" (1989) and the clear-eyed heroine of "When Harry Met Sally..." (also 1989). The latter brought Ephron her second Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
Moving to the director's chair, Ephron oversaw "This Is My Life" (1992). Co-written with her sister Delia, it was a comedy starring Julie Kavner that traced how a single mother struggled to become an established stand-up comic. Ephron followed with the box office hit "Sleepless in Seattle" (1993), which she helmed and co-wrote (with David S Ward and Jeff Arch). Less about love than about love in motion pictures, the film drew its inspiration from Leo McCarey's 1957 tearjerker "An Affair to Remember" with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in the leading roles--indeed, the film would help define both stars' screen images throughout the 1990s, particularly Ryan's. It was also introduce what would become a long-standing Ephron trademark of overloading her film's soundtracks with pop standards designed to too-easily evoke a mood (perhaps cribbed from Reiner's far more effective use of harry Connick, Jr.'s big band interpretations on the "When Harry Met Sally..." soundtrack, in turn cribbed from Woody Allen's shrewd use of Gershwin and other composers in his films). Her 1994 follow-up "Mixed Nuts" was a black comedy about a suicide hot line at Christmas and suffered from its holiday release. Despite the presence of Steve Martin and several other comic talents, the film was a commerical and critical bomb.
Ephron bounced back co-producing, co-writing (with Delia Ephron) and directing John Travolta in the genial "Michael" (1996), about tabloid reporters investigating a possible angelic visitation (a decent success in the theaters, the film would further gain in popularity over the years via TV airings and video). She reteamed with "Sleepless" stars Hanks and Ryan for "You've Got Mail" (1998), which put a modern spin on Ernst Lubitsch's charming 1940 classic "The Shop Around the Corner" and charmed a huge audience (if not always the critics). Ephron the writer and Ryan continued their alliance--less successfully, this time--with the comedy "Hanging Up" (2000), which matched the actress in a dysfunctional relationship with her aging father (Walter Matthau) and neurotic sisters Lisa Kidrow and Diane Keaton, the latter of whom helmed the film. Ephron the director did not officially pen her next effort, the flat and dismal comedy "Lucky Numbers" (2000), which cast John Travolta as a small town TV weatherman who plans to scam the local lottery.
After a lengthy absence from the screen (except for an uncredited rewrite of another disappointment, "America's Sweethearts," in 2001) Ephron showed a solid return to form when she co-wrote (with sister Delia) and directed the feature film version of the classic '60s sitcom "Bewitched" (2005). Informed that Nicole Kidman was interested in the property, Ephron received a call from Sony Pictures giving her a day to think up an approach to the material, and she came up with one that scored with Kidman and the studios: rather than a straight adaptation, Ephron envisioned Kidman as a reluctant real-life witch trying to give up her reliance on magic, only to find herself cast in the role of Samantha in a Hollywood remake of the TV series by a vain washed-up actor (Will Ferrell) who hopes to keep the spotlight on himself by working opposite an unknown. The resulting film was generally charming in a light-as-chiffon way, if a tad uneven when veering between witchcraft jokes, Ferrell's foolery, nods to the original series, the romantic comedy elements and send-ups of Hollywood--many of the elments worked on their own, but often seemed haphazardly stitched together. And as The Village Voice poined out, Ephron continued her bent toward overusing familiar pop music in scene transitions, tapping just about every witchcraft-related tune in memory, from Frank Sinatra to the Eagles to the Police.