FROM TOP: ARTY POMERANTZ; LYNN GOLDSMITH/CORBIS; STEPHEN LOVEKIN/GETTY IMAGES; COLUMBIA PICTURES/EVERETT COLLECTION
Enter
mark conversationalist, just about
the best person you could wind up
talking to at a cocktail party. She
was a generous listener and utterly
authentic. The first time I met
Nora, about 12 years ago, we were
seated next to one another at a
dinner in a Manhattan townhouse
and she made me, and everyone
else at the table, laugh. She stayed
on it, too, keeping us laughing
through each and every course, as
if it were a tutorial.
Nora had the self-confidence to
not only acknowledge her own insecurities but to jest about them
and own them, and, when she
wanted to, she could wield humor like a stiletto. She once wrote
this: “Insane people are always
sure that they are fine. It is only
the sane people who are willing
to admit that they are crazy.” And
this: “When I buy a new book,
I always read the last page first,
that way in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends. That, my
friend, is a dark side.” And this:
“In my sex fantasy, nobody ever
loves me for my mind. ”
So, now, whoosh, the candle
has gone out.
Nora was a magician and
she’ll be missed.
—Timothy L. O’Brien
From top: Ephron
covering Robert
F. Kennedy’s
1964 Senate
campaign for the
New York Post;
with filmmaker
Sydney Pollack;
with husband
Nick Pileggi in
2009; directing
Julie & Julia
(2009).