It's not just about Harry: why Nora Ephron (still) matters

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IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT HARRY: WHY NORA EPHRON (STILL) MATTERS

by
Kristin Marguerite Doidge

______________________________________________________________________________

A Professional Project Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM)

May 2015

Copyright 2015 Kristin Marguerite Doidge

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Table of Contents
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………….2
It’s Not Just About Harry: Why Nora Ephron (Still) Matters………………………………...3
References……………………………………………………………………………………18-19

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Abstract
Nora Ephron, the late film director, screenwriter, author and journalist made a name for herself
dreaming up characters like the iconic Sally in “When Harry Met Sally” for the silver screen. In
a successful career that spanned four decades, in everything she did, Ephron, like Sally, really
did seem to know what she was doing, which is why her closest circle of friends regarded her as
their very own witty, sharp-tongued “Dear Abby” of sorts. When it came to all matters of life,
love, and the lunch menu, if you asked, she’d tell you exactly what to do (often, even if you
didn’ t ask, in classic, charming, “bossy” Ephron fashion). Up until her untimely passing in 2012,
Ephron doled out advice to readers and audiences everywhere via her deeply personal essays,
books, movies, blogs, and interviews, but how much of it rings relevant and true today? Does the
Sally of today still want to meet Harry -- that is, to fall in love and get married the way it was
imagined in the golden era of the 1990s romantic comedy?

This article seeks to suggest what Ephron would say about “state of the union of marriage” in
post-Ephron America. Marriage today is in crisis. The Pew Research Center’s projections show
that a record high of 25 percent of today’s young adults is likely to have never been married by
the time they reach their mid-40s to mid-50s. What would Ephron say to do? What have her
films and essays taught us about marriage, love, and relationships? I sat down with some of the
people who were closest with Ephron and her work (and poured over many of her most well-
known (and some little-known) essays and films myself) to find out the critical answers to these
questions, and to show why Nora Ephron (still) matters in helping to solve the marriage crisis.

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It’s Not Just About Harry: Why Nora Ephron (Still) Matters

“I’ll have what she’s having!” - When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
Who can forget that classic line after Meg Ryan’s now famous ‘Sally’ had given ‘Harry’ (played
by Billy Crystal) -- and the rest of the diner patrons -- the performance of her life to express her
passionate “enjoyment” of her perfect sandwich in the 1989 smash hit film, “When Harry Met
Sally…”? It certainly seemed like Sally -- the quintessential “high maintenance” modern woman
-- always knew what she wanted, and wasn’t afraid to ask for it, whether it was the precise way a
sandwich should be prepared, or the kind of man with whom to share her life.

The same could be said for Nora Ephron, the late film director, screenwriter, author and
journalist who made a name for herself dreaming up characters like Sally, Annie Reed
(“Sleepless in Seattle”) and Kathleen Kelly (“You’ve Got Mail”) for the silver screen. In
everything she did, Ephron, like Sally, really did seem to know what she was doing, which is
why her closest circle of friends regarded her as their very own witty, sharp-tongued “Dear
Abby” of sorts. When it came to all matters of life, love, and the lunch menu, if you asked, she’d
tell you exactly what to do (often, even if you didn’ t ask, in classic, charming, “bossy” Ephron
fashion).

For the past four decades, Ephron doled out advice to readers and audiences everywhere via her
deeply personal essays, books, movies, blogs, and interviews, but how much of it rings relevant
and true today? Would Sally still want to meet Harry today -- that is, to fall in love and get
married the way it was imagined in the golden era of the 1990s romantic comedy?

4

The State of the Union (of Marriage) in Post-Ephron America
Since “When Harry Met Sally…” was released 26 years ago, a new generation of young
“Sally’s” and “Harry’s” have grown up, and according to research data, they’re not all that
excited about getting hitched, or so it seems. Marriage today is on the decline -- in fact, it’s in
crisis. The Pew Research Center’s projections published in their recent comprehensive social
trends report show that a record high of 25 percent of today’s young adults is likely to have never
been married by the time they reach their mid-40s to mid-50s. Some experts have argued that
marriage needs to be “rebranded” for millennials or else it could become “extinct.” Many of us
20-30-somethings certainly don’t feel we “need” a man -- but should we (not?) want a man?
Marriage? A family? Everlasting love?

It seems like we could use a lifeline...and fast. And I know exactly who I would call. What
would Ephron say to do? What have her films and essays taught us about marriage, love, and
relationships? About independence and self-reliance? About family and siblings? Most of all, is
it possible to have both independence and a happy marriage? What defines a happy “marriage”
today? Our friendships? Our children? Our art or our work?

I sat down with some of the people who were closest with Ephron and her work (and poured over
many of her most well-known (and some little-known) essays and films myself) to try to find out
the answers to these questions. Why does Nora Ephron (still) matter when it comes to solving the
marriage crisis today? Because whether her writings were written in 1972 or 1996, they are still
“so fresh you could smudge the ink,” as journalist Hadley Freeman said. It turns out it’s not just
about Harry anymore; marriage in post-Ephron America is being remixed and redefined, and it’s

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Ephron’s funny, poignant, lovably “bossy” advice -- from her life and her work (which became
inextricably intertwined by way of her screenwriting mother’s famous advice that “everything is
copy”) -- that can help give the old notions of love and marriage imaginative new meanings in
film, television, and in real life for the next generation.

The Unforgettable Ephron “Voice”
Ephron practically owned the romantic comedy genre in the late 1980s and 90s, and wrote and
often directed a number of critically-acclaimed and commercially successful films delivered in
her signature insightful, funny, and authentic style until her untimely passing in 2012. Her first
film was “Silkwood” in 1983, which earned Ephron her first Academy Award nomination for
Best Screenplay (with Alice Arlen), about the defiant and brave whistleblower Karen Silkwood,
and her last film was “Julie & Julia,” about the famous chef, Julia Child in 2009, both starring
the one and only Meryl Streep. But it was during Ephron’s first career as a journalist and essayist
in the early 1970s that she put pen to paper and established her voice as a savvy, sassy, smart and
forward-thinking writer on everything from her candid disdain for the size of her breasts (“A
Few Words About Breasts”), to the complicated relationships between women and men, work,
love, friendship and family.

Ephron’s signature voice and affinity for speaking pointedly about topics that typically were
swept under the rug -- like “Vaginal Politics” -- in most mainstream publications made her a
standout for female readers, who felt an instant connection to her and her writing. But some of
Ephron’s pieces were ahead of their time when they were published, and like fine Rhône Valley
wines, needed some time to breathe to be experienced fully with all the senses.

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“She thought she was the most interesting subject to write about,” said Richard Reeves, a
historian and former colleague of Ephron from her journalism days at New York Magazine. And
that became her calling card. Ephron covered “women’s issues” in the early 1960s before
“women’s issues” had become part of a potent movement, and it was her biting prose that earned
her a column at Esquire in 1972. Writing as a woman -- about women -- in a men’s magazine in
1972 was undoubtedly a tall order, and Ephron fulfilled it with vigor, tackling everything from
the personal to the political.

“Ephron, as a columnist charged with expressing her own opinions, managed to strike the right
balance between story and self. That she had a large and devoted readership had much to do with
her ability to create a persona (one that presumably was fairly close to reality) with which
readers could identify, in large measure because she was self-deprecating and actually seemed to
mean it,” wrote Jonathan Yardley, the longtime Washington Post book critic, in 2004.

Ephron’s writing didn’t catch on with everyone right away. For some, “she was a bit of an
acquired taste at first,” said Reeves. “But once she wrote ‘Wallflower at the Orgy,’ people didn’t
have a choice but to sit up and take notice of her.”

‘It Had to Be You.’
"Wallflower at the Orgy,” published in 1970, was the first of three essay collections published
within the decade, with "Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women" (1975) and "Scribble
Scribble: Notes on the Media" (1978) following behind. “She was the first person to write about
women,” says Lynda Obst, producer of two of Ephron’s films, “This is My Life” and “Sleepless

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in Seattle” and Ephron’s longtime friend and collaborator. “I don’t have small breasts, but she
made me want small breasts because they seemed so cool.”

When Ephron transitioned to screenwriter and film director, she became a source of inspiration
and wisdom for more than just a generation of “rom-com” fans; she became a popular culture
force to be reckoned with, having shaped how love and marriage have come to be viewed by new
groups of young men and women over the past several decades. Ephron not only wrote a total of
thirteen screenplays (earning Academy Award nominations for Best Screenplay for three of
them, and winning the BAFTA award for “When Harry Met Sally…”), but she had lived through
the ups and downs of the tumultuous 1960s and 70s in America, leaving her mark forever in print
publications like the New York Post, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and later in MORE magazine and on
blogs for digital outlets like the Huffington Post.

Audiences identified with her not only because of her ability to articulate her personal
experiences with relationships, and how she seemed to find humor in heartbreak, but for her
never-ending yearning for the patient, beautiful love stories of times past, having frequently
adapted classic Hollywood films like “An Affair to Remember” (which became “Sleepless in
Seattle”) and “The Shop Around the Corner” (which became “You’ve Got Mail”). “Ephron's
work harkens back to an earlier period of the genre—sometimes explicitly—as in the update of
1940’s ‘The Shop Around the Corner,’” said Dr. Alison Trope, professor of communication
studies and director of The Critical Media Project at USC. “Such referencing and borrowing may
evoke nostalgia for another era and an idealized picture of romance.”

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Today, for all of the new algorithms, latest scientific data on compatibility, and new dating apps
being created in droves every day, three-in-ten young people looking to get married say they still
“have not found someone who has what they are looking for in a spouse,” according to Pew. If
that doesn’t sound like the quintessential setup for a rom-com, I don’t know what does. Clearly
the answers can’t be found in technology alone, or in “big” data (or is it small data?) or
compatibility charts, even if you’ve gone through the trauma of swiping left a million times on
Tinder hoping for that one magical “swipe right” that matches your dreams (P.S. is that really the
story for the grandchildren? I digress). Assuming today’s Sally’s actually want to get married --
in the traditional sense -- then, what seems to be the real problem standing in their way?
Problem No. 1: Not Enough Good “Harry’s”?
“You know what Nora would say the problem is?” said Richard Cohen with a laugh, “men.”
He’s the longtime family friend of Ephron and her husband Nick Pileggi, and a columnist for
The Washington Post. I laughed and agreed wholeheartedly. Cohen told me that, admittedly at
his age, he “had no idea what it’s like out there now,” and I told him the truth: it’s not so great.
How and where should the successful “Sally’s” of today -- unmarried millennial women who are
educated and interested in potentially getting married -- find their “Harry’s”? Well, Houston (and
New York, and Los Angeles, and Chicago, and Seattle), we may have a problem.

The recent Pew Research survey findings suggest that never-married women place a high
premium on finding a spouse with a steady job, and yet the changes in the labor market due to
the ever-fluctuating economy the past several years have contributed to a shrinking pool of
available employed young men. This means that literally for every 100 “Sally’s” aged 25 to 34,
there are only 91 employed men in the same age group who -- going by these standards -- would

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be considered eligible bachelors (down from 139 in 1960), even though men outnumber women
in absolute numbers. Could this be why women are opting out of marriage altogether? Or, is this
generation -- known for being impatient and idealistic -- not willing to wait for the random,
mysterious twists and turns love often takes, such that they’re settling for the next-best-thing?
Poor Harry; maybe it’s not really his fault at all.

In a rare interview with Charlie Rose in 2009, Ephron said that the film “Julie & Julia” is “really
about a kind of marriage that actually exists.” She laughed and continued:

Thank God it does, or people would have accused me of making this up, but there are
guys who really do take enormous pleasure in their wives’ growth. I loved realizing about
halfway through that I was writing a movie about marriage. How rare it is you get to do
this kind of marriage, because movies require plot; but a good marriage requires the
absence of plot. The last thing you want is for something to happen.

That “something” can simply be that you stay together, support each other, and perhaps even
boost one another as people -- but since the beginning of time, some women prefer to do the
opposite. They sometimes choose a partner that doesn’t quite fit, hope for the best, and decide
“okay” is good enough.

Problem No. 2: Ordering the ‘Crazy Salad’
“It’s certain that fine women eat
a crazy salad with their meat”
- William Butler Yeats, poet
Ephron first published “Crazy Salad: Some Things about Women” in 1975, featuring essays that
were originally published in her Esquire magazine column. And the title of the collection is

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important and relevant to today’s marriage situation: it takes its name from the William Butler
Yeats’ poem written for his daughter in 1919, in which he cautions her that beautiful and
successful (“fine”) women tend to often marry men (referred to here as the “crazy salad”) who --
in his opinion -- are not “good” enough partners. This was an observation ripe for Ephron’s
signature sharp pen as the women’s movement was taking shape in America. Why, oh why, do
we insist on ordering the crazy salad time and again and expect a different result?

It was “Ephron's sympathetic but mischievous and occasionally contrarian look” at the women’s
movement that made “Crazy Salad” so fresh at the time it was published, wrote Yardley in 2004,
adding that he had included it in his list of best books that year, and that it’s “still crisp” nearly
thirty years later. “At a moment in its history when that movement was almost aggressively
humorless, Ephron wrote about it with irreverence and a merciless eye for hypocrisy and self-
satisfaction...and the reading public greeted it enthusiastically,” he said.

Ephron recognized that the issues facing women were serious, but according to Cohen, “Nora
couldn’t take a movement without humor.” She lived the life of a feminist, he says, but was at
heart a journalist, an observer, not a joiner. But the way she lived her life was probably the most
powerful and persuasive unwritten statement for today’s generation about how feminism is
neither about “self-pity” nor “self-importance,” nor is it a bad word; it’s not about hating men or
giving up on the dream of a great marriage. Ephron loved men, and felt they should be a part of
the conversation, but she also fervently believed in individual agency and passion in what you do
on behalf of women.

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In her now iconic Wellesley commencement speech given to the class of 1996, Ephron urged the
graduates of her alma mater to “take things personally,” and resist the popular practice of apathy
-- to brush things off as being unimportant because they “don’t apply to me,” because,
ultimately, they do. Basically, Ephron argued, fight for what you believe in, and for what you
really want. Read: there’s no need to order the “crazy salad,” and if Ephron were at your
proverbial dating table and you tried to do it, she’d have a quip to quash the urge, that’s for sure.
“Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.”

Obst said that while they were in production in Toronto, trying to bring the city of New York to
life on the film set, Ephron’s repeated requests for Dr. Brown’s cream soda were ignored by the
props department, who kept bringing her regular, generic Canadian cream soda instead. Ephron
was frustrated and baffled, but wasn’t about to give up on what she wanted.

“Fight for the cream soda,” says Obst with a mischievous smile. “Whatever your sensibility is,
fight for it. If anyone on your team is letting you down, don’t give up.”

Problem 3: Can You Really “Have it All”?
Before looking at Ephron’s work, I was inspired by the 2002 documentary film “Searching for
Debra Winger” by Rosanna Arquette, in which she interviewed well-known Hollywood actresses
about balancing motherhood and their life’s work or art, culminating in an interview with actress
Debra Winger, who willingly walked away from Hollywood at the height of her career to have a
family. Arquette found that no actress -- no matter how successful or talented -- had truly found

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the right ‘answer’ to the age-old question of whether or not it’s possible to balance a family and
children with a career.

Reeves noted that Ephron’s views on love and marriage changed over time, depending on what
was going on in her personal life, and those views most definitely were reflected in her work.
But she was always a doting and devoted mother to her two sons, Reeves said, and that
tenderness is perhaps best seen through the single mother characters in her films “This is My
Life” (played by Julie Kavner) and in “My Blue Heaven” (played by Joan Cusack). Obst says
Ephron learned all about baseball upon having sons and not daughters, and by all accounts, did
her best not to micromanage their lives.

After the mercilessly honest, and simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking depiction (as only
she could do) of the end her marriage to fellow journalist Carl Bernstein in “Heartburn,” (as a
novel and a film), Ephron’s work took a dramatic turn into the decidedly optimistic, warm, and
ever-hopeful romantic comedy era that would come to define much of her legacy. The reason for
this newfound faith in love off-screen? An easy-going Italian who stole her heart.

The Italian, Nick Pileggi, a well-known screenwriter in his own right, known for such hits as
“Goodfellas” and “Casino,” was Ephron’s “secret to happiness,” later in life. They married in
1987 and enjoyed from what all accounts was a long and happy marriage until her death in 2012.

“And happiness, even more than journalism, screenwriting, directing, cooking, blogging, was
Nora’s gift to her fans and to her friends,” wrote Alessandra Stanley in the New York Times. “In
1986, when a Newsweek cover put a metaphorical bullet through the single career women over

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40, she refuted all by herself the fear that powerful women repel men, that funny girls go home
to their cats, that having it all means enjoying it alone.” Ephron summed it up at Wellesley by
quoting Yogi Berra: “Two paths diverge in a wood, and we get to take them both.” For her, she
took more than two, made a few detours and pit stops, and never, ever looked back.

Solving the Marriage Crisis: Ephron on Sense (Sentiment) and Sensibility
Ironically, for someone who made such seemingly tender romantic films, Ephron reportedly
“loathed” sentiment, but she knew how to capture the crazy idea that men have feelings, too, in
the minutia of her flawed characters and clever dialogue (“Did you see ‘Fatal Attraction’? Well I
did, and it scared the s--t out of me!” - Tom Hanks in “Sleepless”). If men and women are to
come together in any kind of union -- be it friendship, romance, marriage or otherwise -- it’s not
about making a “woman’s movie,” in Hollywood or in life, and Ephron’s films seemed to speak
to that sensibility.

“Tom [Hanks] made it a ‘man’s’ movie,” Obst says of “Sleepless”. “So many people say it’s a
‘woman’s movie,’ but it’s really about a man’s romantic struggle.”

Instead of force-feeding audiences with implausible gag-worthy storylines that are overly
sentimental, Obst says it was always about authenticity with Ephron. “It was like the scene with
peeling the apple in ‘Sleepless’...what’s the detail you remember about someone who leaves?”
says Obst. “It’s the touching detail that you’ll never see again -- it is touching, but it has no
sentiment. It has uniqueness, texture, smell.”

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Don’t be an idiot. Love, Nora
It’s been nearly three years since Ephron’s passing, and both Reeves and Cohen softly revealed
the quiet, aching void Pileggi still feels when he’s at home in New York. The texture, the smell,
the uniqueness of her -- it’s undoubtedly what he misses most. Pileggi was the perfect easy-going
yin to Ephron’s perfectionist, sometimes overbearing yang, said Reeves, since Ephron was “born
to be a director, no matter what apartment she lived in, she was always in charge...she planned
everyone’s life.”

But Ephron’s controlling nature was revered by her close family and friends, who would
frequently come to her for advice on everything from relationship issues, motherhood trials and
tribulations, or career woes. “Nora would just direct you with everything,” says Obst. “I knew
she’d be a director just watching her order in a restaurant.”

“She would listen to your problem and then give her own brand of tough-love advice like, well
‘don’t be an idiot,’” Reeves said. And she was an outright mentor and fiercely loyal confidante to
her closest group of friends.

“She was a true mentor,” said Meg Wolitzer, the best-selling author whose novel “This is Your
Life” was adapted into a film Ephron both wrote (with sister Delia) and directed in 1992. “It
meant so much to me to be able to go to her over the years.”

Ephron was dependable for career advice, too. “I didn’t know if I should leave the [New York]
Times, if I should take certain jobs...but it was Nora I went to for counsel on these things,” says
Obst.

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What would Ephron tell us to do about love and work if we asked her today? For Wolitzer, her
advice would be simple: “She would have said to try to be less afraid...to try to just go out and do
things.”

Double the Walnuts, Please.
Much of Ephron’s charm comes from her unabashed sense of fearlessness. She epitomized this
notion of ‘asking for what you want’ in Sally on-screen, and this became an ethos -- perhaps
even a way of living -- for women in the 90s and 2000s.

Wolitzer shared a story that, for her, sums up this part of Ephron’s philosophy in a delicious and
poetic way: “Everyone was ordering this new salad with the candied walnuts. Candied walnuts
had never been seen on a salad before. And I remember when she ordered the salad she said, ‘I’d
like double the walnuts, please.’ I didn’t even know you could ask for something like that, or
would think to ask for it. I thought it was the perfect metaphor for her life. She knew the good
things in life and wasn’t afraid to ask for them.” But just as it isn’t only about what Harry wants,
it’s of course not (at least not always...) just about Sally, either.

I think in the end, Ephron believed we’re better together than we are apart. Double the walnuts,
double the screenwriters, whatever it may be, she believed in the value of collaboration in
building strong relationships, especially if it’s with your family. Sometimes the best marriages
aren’t really “marriages” at all, but they’re those secret, sacred bonds from childhood that last a
lifetime. John Lindley, the cinematographer who worked with Ephron on four of her films,
including “Sleepless,” “Michael,” and “You’ve Got Mail,” said that Ephron and her younger

16

sister Delia (who often co-wrote screenplays with her, such as “You’ve Got Mail,” “Hanging
Up,” and “Bewitched”) seemed to speak in their “own language” and “they always knew what
the other was thinking...they were like people who had spent their lives in jail together.”

Food -- probably one of Ephron’s longest-running love affairs -- was one of her favorite ways to
bring people together, and it’s fitting that the culinary flavored biopic “Julie & Julia” was her last
film. It has a warm, maternal instinct to it that is so charmingly Ephron, and embodies the way
her words can travel through time to bring new meanings for our generation. Lindley laughed as
he recalled the scene backstage, “It’s the only set I’ve worked on where the crew complained
about too much food.”
In her list of “Thing I’ll Miss/Things I won’t Miss,” one of the only times she hinted at her
illness, she also wrote about her love of books, conversations, advice, Christmas, New York, her
children.

“When you see ‘You’ve Got Mail,’ you’re seeing Nora,” said Lindley. “It’s not just in the
dialogue or the wit. It’s not just that Roald Dahl was her favorite children’s author, or that daisies
were her favorite flower; what you’re seeing is her outlook on life, which is to be happy and
embrace change.” As they prepped for the film “Michael,” Lindley recalled that Ephron said to
him, “to me, what this movie is about is that Heaven is on Earth.” Ephron wasn’t ill at the time,
but now that she’s gone, the words are painfully bittersweet.

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It’s Not Just About Harry.
Nora Ephron believed that it is indeed possible to “have it all” if you have the right kind of
marriage. That is, the right kind of “husband” -- which I believe Ephron remixed over time to
include sisters, brothers, children, parents, and dear friends. Friendship, love, marriage -- and the
complicated beautiful messes they bring -- embrace them. And remember, it’s not just about
Harry. Ephron, like her most perfectly imperfect romantic comedy heroines, evolved in her
views on marriage, and was transformed by love with Pileggi, her children, her sisters and her
close circle of loyal friends and colleagues. She grew as a person just as she told her young
Wellesley fellow graduates (hoping to follow in her footsteps) that they would one day -- in
surprising and complicated ways. She literally was, I believe -- in the best way possible --
transformed by love in real life.
Whatever “it” was that Ephron had, today’s Harry and Sally do still want to find it, and the
ingredients are all here in her timeless advice. Just remember: when it comes to matters of the
heart, “you can never have too much butter.”

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References

Adams, Tim. “Nicholas Pileggi: The Mob, Nora Ephron’s Death and Vegas.” The Guardian. Feb
3, 2013. http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/feb/03/nicholas-pileggi-vegas-nora-
ephron

Alison Trope, PhD, interview by Kristin M. Doidge. March 24, 2015.
Ephron, Nora. The Most Of Nora Ephron. New York: Knopf, 2013.
Ephron, Nora. Crazy Salad: Some things about Women. New York: Vintage Books, 1975.
Ephron, Nora. “Nora Ephron’s Commencement Address to Wellesley Class of 1996.” The
Huffington Post. June 26, 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/26/norah-ephrons-
commencement-96-address_n_1628832.html

Freeman, Hadley. “Nora Ephron taught me all about feminism – and about sharp writing.” The
Guardian. Aug 5, 2013. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/05/a-book-that-
changed-me-nora-ephron

Heartburn. Directed by Mike Nichols. 1986. Paramount Home Entertainment, 2004. Film.
John Lindley, interview by Barbara Nance, March 3, 2015.
John Lindley, interview by Kristin M. Doidge, March 27, 2015.
Julie & Julia. Directed by Nora Ephron. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2009. Film.
Lynda Obst, interview by Barbara Nance. February 24, 2015.
Meg Wolitzer, interview by Barbara Nance, February 10, 2015.
"Meryl Streep & Nora Ephron - Charlie Rose - Part 1 of 4." YouTube. August 17, 2009.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-8_zS2m-n4.

"Meryl Streep & Nora Ephron - Charlie Rose - Part 2 of 4." YouTube. August 17, 2009.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6XMXQRNAQY.

"Meryl Streep & Nora Ephron - Charlie Rose - Part 3 of 4." YouTube. August 17, 2009.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xCy1cNfy_k.

"Meryl Streep & Nora Ephron - Charlie Rose - Part 4 of 4." YouTube. August 17, 2009.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxdSmEZyIXM.

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Pew Research Center. “Record Share of Americans Have Never Married.” PewSocialTrends.org.
September 24, 2014. http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/09/24/record-share-of-americans-
have-never-married/

Richard Cohen, interview by Kristin M. Doidge, February 18, 2015.
Richard Reeves, interview by Kristin M. Doidge, February 10, 2015.
Sleepless in Seattle. Directed by Nora Ephron. 1993. Tri-Star Pictures, 2003. Film.
Stanley, Alessandra. “Nora Ephron’s Hollywood Ending.” The New York Times. June 28, 2012.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/fashion/nora-ephrons-hollywood-ending.html?_r=0

This Is My Life. Directed by Nora Ephron. FoxVideo, 1992. Film.
When Harry Met Sally. Directed by Rob Reiner. 1989. Metro Goldwyn Mayer Home
Entertainment, 2001. Film.

Yardley, Jonathan. “Nora Ephron’s ‘Crazy Salad’; Still Crisp.” The Washington Post. November
1, 2004. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17418-2004Nov1.html

You've Got Mail. Directed by Nora Ephron. 1998. Warner Bros. Home Video, 1999. Film.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Nora Ephron, the late film director, screenwriter, author and journalist made a name for herself dreaming up characters like the iconic Sally in “When Harry Met Sally” for the silver screen. In a successful career that spanned four decades, in everything she did, Ephron, like Sally, really did seem to know what she was doing, which is why her closest circle of friends regarded her as their very own witty, sharp‐tongued “Dear Abby” of sorts. When it came to all matters of life, love, and the lunch menu, if you asked, she’d tell you exactly what to do (often, even if you didn’t ask, in classic, charming, “bossy” Ephron fashion). Up until her untimely passing in 2012, Ephron doled out advice to readers and audiences everywhere via her deeply personal essays, books, movies, blogs, and interviews. ❧ This article seeks to suggest what Ephron would say about “state of the union of marriage” in post‐Ephron America. Marriage today is in crisis. The Pew Research Center’s projections show that a record high of 25 percent of today’s young adults is likely to have never been married by the time they reach their mid‐40s to mid‐50s. What would Ephron say to do? What have her films and essays taught us about marriage, love, and relationships? Does the Sally of today still want to meet Harry—that is, to fall in love and get married the way it was imagined in Ephron's golden era of the 1990s romantic comedy? I sat down with some of the people who were closest with Ephron and her work (and poured over many of her most well‐known (and some little‐known) essays and films myself) to find out the critical answers to these questions, and to show why Nora Ephron (still) matters in helping to solve much more than the marriage crisis.

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Asset Metadata

Creator Doidge, Kristin Marguerite (author)

Core Title It's not just about Harry: why Nora Ephron (still) matters

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Specialized Journalism

Publication Date 04/22/2015

Defense Date 04/22/2015

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag advice,Books,Carl Bernstein,cinema,Death,feminism,film,Life,Love,Marriage,Meg Ryan,melodrama,Nora Ephron,nostalgia,OAI-PMH Harvest,Pew,romance,romantic comedy,rom-com,Tom Hanks,Watergate,Wellesley

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Murphy, Mary (committee chair), Lowe, Karen (committee member), Nance, Barbara (committee member)

Creator Email kristin.doidge@usc.edu,kristinmarguerite@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-556465

Unique identifier UC11299811

Identifier etd-DoidgeKris-3363.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-556465 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-DoidgeKris-3363.pdf

Dmrecord 556465

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Doidge, Kristin Marguerite

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA