Who's Here

Nora Ephron - Writer

By Susan M. Galardi

"I thought it was incredible - a brilliant idea," said Nora Ephron, referring to Ilene Beckerman's best-selling book Love Loss and What I Wore. "I wish I thought of it. Although if I had written it, it would have been called Love Loss and What I Ate."

Does the brilliant screenwriter, journalist and author Ephron ever not have a comeback? Doubtful. This acerbic-witted social commentator and satirist, who wrote the book I Feel Bad about My Neck and the blockbuster, Academy Award-nominated films When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and Silkwood seems to think about everything, dissecting topics with a wry, laser sharp insight.

Ephron, who has been coming to the East End since 1966, and her sister Delia have written an "evening" that was inspired by Beckerman's book. A staged reading of their play, Love Loss and What I Wore, will be presented Saturday, August 2 at the Bridgehampton Community House. The cast, directed by Karen Carpenter, is a dream team for an Ephron effort, featuring master comic actors Linda Lavin and Kathy Najimy. "I'm very excited about the cast," said Ephron.

In her long, tremendously successful, high profile career, starting as a journalist for The New York Post and through her more current roles as producer/director, Ephron has written everything from essays to films to fiction and nonfiction, including the book and screenplay Heartburn, based on her marriage to and divorce from Carl Bernstein, Washington Post journalist of Watergate/Deep Throat fame. While many writers are comfortable in only one genre, Ephron moves effortlessly among them which allows her to develop an idea without restriction, which means that a concept that screams theatre doesn't have to be forced between the covers of a book.

"With some ideas, you just know," she said. "With others, you think, 'God, what is it?' If it does turn out to be a book, you say 'Forget it.' Ilene's book obviously isn't a movie - it has no plot. But when I first read the manuscript I fell in love with it. I suggested to Delia that we make it not a play, but an evening."

Beckerman's book tells the story of the author's own life through the clothes she wore - a Brownie uniform, Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dress, prom dress, wedding gown. That inspired device, as well as the subject matter told from a very female point of view, had Nora Ephron written all over it. But turning art and copy into a night of living, breathing theater may seem daunting (but then, Maira Kalman transformed Strunk and White's straightforward grammar guide, Elements of Style, into a wry and whimsical illustrated book.) The Ephron sisters used the book, Love Loss, for its content and as inspiration, reaching out to friends for more stories.

"It's shockingly interactive," said Ephron. "You immediately start thinking of everything you wore."

The result is a compilation of hilarious stories from many women - similar to the format of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues. In addition to creating an evening, Ephron had her own agenda for expanding the concept of the book.

"One reason I wanted to do it, secretly, was that I'd written the essay 'I Hate My Purse,'" she said. "I knew it was a monologue when I wrote it. This was a perfect way to work it in to a theatrical evening."

The play delves into clothing-related issues like colors. "We have this pathetic obsession with the color black. I mean how many black turtleneck sweaters can you have?" said Ephron. Discussing how "a good color for you" can change for a person over time, this writer mentioned that, while black was a great color earlier in life, it now evokes images of an Italian widow sweeping a stoop. "Do you have grey hair?" asked Ephron. "Because if you have grey hair and wear black you will definitely look like an Italian widow."

The play also explores the challenge of throwing clothing away, calling to mind a line from stand up comic, Michelle Balan, who said, "I look in my closet and think 'I just might need that gold lame dickey some day.'"

Ephron urged including that line in this story, even though she didn't pen it - the sign of a true collaborator. In fact, she has successfully played well with others, including Delia, on many projects. With her sister, she has acted as producer/director, and co-wrote Mixed Nuts, and You've Got Mail. While collaborating with a sibling would seem to be a double whammy for many creative types, Ephron revels in the arrangement. "I find it very easy to work with Delia because she is hilariously funny," said Ephron. "We share about one-half a brain - grew up in the same place, we share a lot of the same references. And we're both obsessed with what we're having for lunch."

Delia and Nora are just two of four writer sisters, born and raised in New York, daughters of screenwriters Henry and Phoebe Ephron, whose writings include Carousel, Take Her, She's Mine, and There's No Business Like Show Business. It begs the question of whether the ability for writing is learned or inborn.

"I have no idea if it's environment or heredity. It's like, try to avoid your destiny. But there's no question that our parents were writers and wanted us to be writers. They taught us how to tell a story, preferably a funny one - it was definitely the way to get their attention. It must have worked, they have four daughters, count them, that are writers," said Ephron, who went on to further dissect the topic of nature/nurture. "But I think about those twins who are raised separately but it ends up that as adults they both own Corvairs and married women named Jane. I wonder if their sense of humor is the same."

Ephron has continued the family tradition of writers with son Max, a singer/songwriter; and Jacob, a staff writer at Fairchild. She has married three writers (in succession) including Dan Greenburg and journalist Bernstein. She currently lives in New York with screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi, her husband of more than 20 years. (In the book, Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure by Larry Smith, Ephron wrote: "Secret to Life, Marry an Italian')

It was the marriage to Bernstein that was most notorious for many reason, including her discovery of his affair with a mutual friend, British politician Margaret Jay. The event inspired Ephron's novel Heartburn, which later became a film starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. For years after the divorce, Ephron would blatantly reveal to anyone who asked (and to many who didn't) the identity of Deep Throat. However, no one seemed to care.

"No one was interested in who Deep Throat was - they were only interested in their own theories of who he was," said Ephron. "So Mark Felt was merely my theory."

It seemed incredible that no one would give Ephron's revelation the weight it deserved. She took that fact, as she has most others, with the proverbial grain of salt.

"I guess I'm not the sort of person you take seriously," she said, "I have to accept that about myself."

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