Nora Ephron dead at 71: When Harry Met Sally writer dies from leukemia

PUBLISHED: 18:50 EST, 26 June 2012 | UPDATED: 08:21 EST, 27 June 2012

Nora Ephron, the writer of iconic movies When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail, has died at the age of 71.

The author and screenwriter had fought a six-year battle with leukemia and finally succumbed to the disease. Ephron's son Jacob Bernstein confirmed her death in Manhattan yesterday.

She earned three Oscar nominations for her screenwriting and her work was among the most quotable and influential of her generation.

Scroll down for highlights from Nora's films

Great wit: Writer and director Nora Ephron, pictured in 2010, passed away today at the age of 71

Great wit: Writer and director Nora Ephron, pictured in 2010, passed away yeserday at the age of 71

Timeless: One of Ephron's greatest creations' When Harry Met Sally, starring Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal, set the precedent for a new style of romantic comedies

Her book publisher Alfred A Knopf also confirmed her death in a statement as fellow writers and the acting community reacted with shock.

Actress Kirstie Alley wrote on Twitter: '"You can settle for reality, or you can go off, like a fool, and dream another dream." ? Nora Ephron. Oh Jeez... you will be missed..RIP XO'

Another actress Kerry Washington said: 'My heart aches. Nora Ephron. What a tremendous loss. RIP.'

Shonda Rhimes, writer and director of Grey's Anatomy, quoted Ephron herself, posting: '''I try to write parts for women that are as complicated and interesting as women actually are.'' - Nora Ephron.'

Colin Hanks, son of Tom Hanks who starred in some of her best-loved movies, said: 'Nora Ephron was devastatingly funny, extremely witty, and was ALWAYS one of the kindest people I have ever met.'

With Tom Hanks: Ephron wrote Sleepless in Seattle and also directed the 1998 film

Best director: Ephron won a 2011 Director's Guild of America award for directing actress Meryl Streep in Julie and Julia. She also wrote the screenplay

Best director: Ephron won a 2011 Director's Guild of America award for directing actress Meryl Streep in Julie & Julia. She also wrote the screenplay

Earlier today newspaper columnist Liz Smith broke the story in a wowOwow article that eulogized the scriptwriter, saying her family including her husband of 20 years, the writer Nicholas Pileggi, had already planned her funeral.

'I won't say, "Rest in peace, Nora" - I will ask, "What the hell will we do without you?"' Smith wrote. The column, which was written as if Ephron had already died, was later removed from the site.

Ephron was born on May 19, 1941 in New York City. At the age of four, she moved to Beverly Hills with her screenwriting parents Henry and Phoebe and three younger sisters.

Determined by high school to be a journalist, Ephron graduated from the single sex Wellesley College in 1962, moved to New York and started out as a fact checker at Newsweek.

Tear-jerker: Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in the wildly popular Sleepless in Seattle, directed and written by Ephron

Another hit: Ephron also wrote and directed You've Got Mail - again starring Hanks and Ryan

She moved to the New York Post and remained there five years. Ephron soon began writing for Esquire and The New York Times and developed a national following with her articles.

She covered political conventions, the feminist movement and Wellesley, which she labeled a factory for 'docile' women.

NORA EPHRON'S FINEST LINES

Harry Burns: You know, you may be the first attractive woman I've not wanted to sleep with in my entire life.
Sally Albright: That's wonderful, Harry.

When Harry Met Sally

All I'm saying is that somewhere out there is the man you are supposed to marry. And if you don't get him first, somebody else will, and you'll have to spend the rest of your life knowing that somebody else is married to your husband.

Marie, When Harry Met Sally

I'll have what she's having - Older woman to waiter after Sally fakes an orgasm at a deli

I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.
Harry

I have to murder and dismember a crustacean.

Julia Powell, Julia & Julia

Annie, when you're attracted to someone, it just means that your subconscious is attracted to their subconscious, subconsciously. So what we think of as fate is just two neuroses knowing that they are a perfect match.

Dennis Reed, Sleepless in Seattle

Well, it was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were supposed to be together... and I knew it. I knew it the very first time I touched her. It was like coming home.

Sam Baldwin, Sleepless In Seattle

She married in 1976 to Carl Bernstein, who teamed with reporter Bob Woodward on prize-winning coverage of the Watergate scandal that brought down President Nixon.

The couple had two children. Ephron was pregnant with her second child when she learned Bernstein was having an affair with a mutual friend Margaret Jay, who was married to the British ambassador to the U.S.

The marriage crumbled but it inspired Ephron's book Heartburn which was so close to her life that Bernstein threatened to sue.

It was later adapted for screen and starred Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. The Oscar-winning actress teamed up with Ephron again in 2009 to star in Julia & Julia.

Ephron's talent for bringing to life flawed but deeply likeable and funny women made her beloved by movie audiences - and industry gold.

One of her greatest successes was When Harry Met Sally, the 1989 romantic comedy starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, about two friends who fall in love despite their own misgivings that the 'sex part always gets in the way'.

The film struck a chord with audiences for its quirky dialogue, sharp wit and more rounded portrayal of female leads.

As a rare woman to write, direct and produce Hollywood movies, Meg Ryan was among the many actresses who said they loved working with Ephron because she understood them so much better than male peers.

Following When Harry Met Sally, she wrote and directed the equally successful Sleepless in Seattle, pairing Meg Ryan with Tom Hanks followed by You've Got Mail, also starring Ryan and Hanks.

When Harry Met Sally earned an Academy Award nomination for its screenplay in 1990 and then four years later, Ephron was nominated again for Sleepless in Seattle.

Ephron was married three times: to Dan Greenberg, Bernstein and, quite happily, to Nicholas Pileggi whose books inspired Martin Scorcese's films Goodfellas and Casino.

She is survived by her husband, two sons Max and Jacob, along with sisters Delia, Amy and Hallie Ephron, all of whom are writers.

Lasting love: Nicholas Pileggi and Nora Ephron, at the Oscars in 2010, had been married for 20 years

Broken heart: Nora wrote Heartburn after husband No. 2, Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein - seen together in 1978 - had an affair with a mutual friend

In her essay, The O Word, Nora Ephron anticipated growing too old to make jokes about her age.

She would be 'really old', beyond sex in a hotel room, or even a frozen custard at Shake Shack.

It would be nice if she believed in a higher being, but the phrase 'everything happens for a reason' is a sermon that only annoyed her.

Ephron wrote of summers in the Hamptons when her children were little, of fireworks on the Fourth of July and picnics on the beach.

She loved the sound of geese in mid-July - 'one of the things that made the summers out there so magical'. As she aged, the geese reminded her that summer will end, and so will everything else.

'I especially began to hate their sound, which was not beating wings - how could I have ever thought it was? - but a lot of uneuphonious honks,' she wrote.

'Now we don't go to Long Island in the summer and I don't hear the geese. Sometimes, instead, we go to Los Angeles, where there are hummingbirds, and I love to watch them because they're so busy getting the most out of life.'