Nora Ephron was born in New York City in 1941, the first of what would be four daughters of screenwriter parents Henry and Phoebe Ephron. After growing up in Beverly Hills, she graduated from Wellesley College and has lived much of her adult life on the east coast, briefly working as an intern in the Kennedy White House.  She lives on Manhattan’s west side with her husband of over 20 years, writer Nicholas Pileggi.

In 1983, when pregnant with her second child, she learned her then-husband Carl Bernstein was having an affair with another woman. Following her mother’s dictum, “Everything is copy,” she went on to write the thinly-disguised novel Heartburn about the experience.  Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and most recently Julie & Julia are a few of the hit films she has written and/or directed.