Movie magic ensued and audiences fell in love when she introduced Harry to Sally, paired Tom Hanks with Meg Ryan and introduced Meryl Streep to the joys of cooking.
She was also responsible for one of the most quoted lines of film dialogue ever, inspired by Ryan's expert faking of sexual ecstasy in a crowded New York deli in 1989's When Harry Met Sally|-|… : When a nearby customer, played by director Rob Reiner's mother, Estelle, overhears Sally's shrieks of joy and tells a waitress, "I'll have what she's having."
Ephron, one of cinema's most successful female filmmakers who re-invented the banter-rich romantic comedies of the '30s and '40s for the modern era, died Tuesday after treatment for acute myeloid leukemia and pneumonia at age 71. But such hits as 1993's Sleepless in Seattle and 1998's You've Got Mail have already proven to be timelessly durable as any classic battle of the sexes fought by Spencer Tracey and Katharine Hepburn.
And, in a decade when R-rated crudeness has replaced old-fashioned chemistry when it comes to relationship comedies, the three-time Oscar nominee's work is more cherished than ever.
Ephron also l eaves behind a literary legacy of novels, plays and especially collections of sharply observed and self-deprecating humorous essays that drew upon her own experiences and feminist-tinged observations to comment on contemporary life. Most recently she focused on the subject of aging in 2006's I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman and 2010's I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections.
Says actress and fellow author Carrie Fisher, who co-starred as Ryan's best friend in When Harry Met Sally … : "I suppose you could say Nora was my ideal. In a world where we're told that you can't have it all, Nora consistently proved that adage wrong. A writer, director, wife, mother, chef, wit â€" there didn't seem to be anything she couldn't do. And not just do it, but excel at it, revolutionize it, set the b ar for every other screenwriter, novelist, director. She was inspiring, intimidating, and insightful. She was so, so alive. It makes no sense to me that she isn't anymore."
It was Ephron's witty way with words that paved her career path, first as a journalist and humor essayist and later as a screenwriter and director, a talent most likely inherited from her parents.
New York-born and Beverly Hills-raised, she was the eldest of four daughters â€" all of whom grew up to be successful scribes â€" born to Henry and Phoebe Ephron, a writing team that produced scripts for such films as the 1956 musical Carousel, the Tracey-Hepburn comedy Desk Set and the 1961 backstage extravaganza There's No Business Like Show Business.
A teenage Nora would inspire their 1961 Broadway comedy, Take Her, She's Mine, which became a 1963 film starring Sandra Dee and James Stewart.
Ephron would also marry three writers. After divorcing novelist Dan Greenburg in 1976, she took up with Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein, who uncovered the Watergate scandal. He created his own scandal by having an affair with a family friend while Ephron was pregnant. That led her to pen a scathingly funny 1983 novel, Heartburn, that would turn into a 1986 film starring Jack Nicholson and Streep.
She finally met her match in 1987 after marrying crime novelist and screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi, who turned his 1986 non-fiction book Wiseguys into the 1990 Mob drama Goodfellas for Martin Scorsese.
Ephron's own rocky love life provided her with the insight she needed as she made the transition from the reporting ranks â€" she wrote for everything from the New|-|York Post to Cosmopolitan magazine â€" to the big screen. Her cinemati c string of strong women protagonists began as the co-writer of the Oscar-nominated script of Silkwood, the 1983 biopic of anti-nuclear whistleblower Karen Silkwood. The movie also marked her first of three collaborations with Streep.
But laughter was her strong suit, and Ephron struck gold by exploring an eternal question â€" "Can a man and a woman just be friends" â€" in When Harry Met Sally … Co-starring Billy Crystal, the film grossed nearly $100 million and turned Ryan into America's sweetheart.
Ephron would add directing to her repertoire with 1992's This Is My Life, a less-successful bittersweet comedy with Julie Kavner as a single mom turned standup comic. But she ca me on strong and scored her biggest box-office hit with 1993's Sleepless in Seattle, which took its cues from 1957 tearjerker An Affair to Remember and teamed Ryan with Tom Hanks as a widower and single dad whose heartfelt story told on a radio show leads countless women to seek out his companionship.
She would reunite Ryan and Hanks again for the popular You've Got Mail, which updated 1940's The Shop Around the Corner with an e-mail twist.
Ephron had her share of misses, including the 1994 black comedy Mixed Nuts with Steve Martin and the 2005 film version of the '60s sitcom Bewitched with Nicole Kidman.
But her final film left a good taste in almost everyone's mouth and provided her with the best reviews of her career at age 68: 2009's Julie Julia, which gave Streep a role of a lifetime as the pioneer chef Julia Child, who wrote the bible on French cooking. In the film, Child's adoring husband Paul, played by Stanley Tucci, encourages his wife by saying, "Your book is going to change the world."
And, in her own way, Ephron changed the wa y we look at the world.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar