RIP Nora Ephron
A brilliant writer, a good lady
RIP Nora Ephron
Death. Like taxes and the Kardashian sisters, it is unavoidable. I don’t usually like dwelling on it, because it tends to depress me, particularly as I enter that sun-dappled grove called “After 50.” But every now and then, some lives are worth examining at their natural end, because even though the sorrow is palpable, so is the sense that all of the beauty and laughter created by that creature when living remain in the wake of her passing. That happened for me with Nora Ephron.
I can’t remember when I first heard her name, but it was probably around the time when I saw “All the President’s Men” with my mother on the Million Dollar Movie. She mentioned to me that the short reporter played by Dustin Hoffman in the film was once married to a really good writer named Nora Ephron, who reacted to his cheating on her by writing a tell-all novel called “Heartburn.”
It was both loving and bitter, sweet and caustic, funny and tragic. I was hooked. Here was a woman who could take her own personal humiliation and turn it into a publishing triumph, all the while making you laugh. But make no mistake: Ephron was a serious lady with a serious message, particularly compelling for someone like me who has a tendency to lose focus when life sends curveballs: “be the heroine in your story not the victim.”
Ephron is from my mother’s generation, someone who was on the cusp of the feminist movement and who might have considered herself a women’s libber but who preferred writing about bras (and how they were filled) than burning them. She made the minutiae of a woman’s life into grand drama, including cooking, men, hygiene, men, handbags, men, plastic surgery, men, and men. She was a navel gazer, that’s true, but unlike so many other women who write about women, she wasn’t convinced that we were the center of the universe or that men were simply the backdrop for our fabulousness. Ephron loved men and women equally (short men named Carl Bernstein being the only exception) and made us love the worlds in which we intersected.
The great thing about good writers is that they’re never really silenced. Their words live on for them. And for someone like Nora Ephron, whose writing was a vital and vibrant thing, she isn’t really gone at all.
I can already hear the keyboard clicking in heaven.
You are so right. I enjoyed the movies she either scripted or directed. And, she gave open-minded men much to consider.— lport- A lovely eulogy, Christine, among many all over the media. Obviously, this was a well loved and respected woman not only for her art but for her being a good friend to many.
I am forever grateful to Nora for giving me some of my favorite films of all time: "Sleepless in Seattle" (lost count of how many times I have watched it.) and "You've Got Mail" especially. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan never looked better than in those films.
— Gendres 
Well, it takes all kinds, folks. I'd much rather watch a Clint Eastwood movie.— PlumberJoe- I was really impressed with the way Ephron/Streep treated Julia Child in Julie & Julia. It was a lovely and loving tribute.— sadim
- Just listened to the 1996 commencement address given by Nora Ephron at her alma mater Wellesley. That is where she uses the inspiring words"...be the heroine in your story not the victim."
Quoting Yogi Berra who once said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it" she said, yes, do take both roads. She wanted women to "have it all" and to lead "interesting lives".
She sounded very happy with how her life had gone so far. She promised those graduates that the best years of their lives were yet to come.
It is all an adventure, Christine. Carpe diem.— Gendres - Hi again. I noticed, Chris, that you have not blogged for over a week. Hope you are on vacation and having a wonderful time!
8-)— Gendres
Email Christine M. at cflowers1961@yahoo.com Reach Christine M. at cflowers1961@yahoo.com.
