There have been few voices as emblematic of the romantic comedy genre asNora Ephron.
You talk about breaking a glass ceiling…. She was her own voice.
She wrote her own scripts.
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She produced and directed them.
People are starting to realize her impact that they didnt realize at the time.
The box office loved her.
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Her audience loved her.
She was doing a genre that both women critics and men critics felt very comfortable in putting down.
Its a classic case of not knowing what weve got until its gone, Obst says.
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What was it that made Ephrons work so singular and enduring?
Her jokes came from dialogue and character.
And that takes a level of writing that I havent seen since she died.
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Nora had this unbelievable ability of always being in the center of all these momentous changes, he says.
It was something Ephron regularly touted.
She spoke about it all the time, says Lee.
She said everybody should work at a newspaper, everybody should work at a magazine.
In her mind, that was her training ground.
Obst adds, Nora felt that her background as a journalist was essential to becoming a screenwriter.
She grew up on those classic movies, says Lee.
Her parents produced and wrote some of them, so she had a clear idea of Old Hollywood.
Nora used to say theres nothing wrong with making people happy.
A classic movie is a rare thing, she says.
Nora saw herself as a citizen of the world, and her screenwriting is part of that.
And her career, for that reason, has a tremendous humanity that [TCM is] recognizing.
And I think that will help her live on through many more generations.
Thats a wonderful body of work that not many people in Hollywood can lay claim to, he stresses.
I just want to see her get her just due.
Every moment of Ephrons life was a testament to her skill as a writer and a director.
She knew right from wrong.
She knew funny from not funny.
She knew her instincts were unerring and never not confident.
And thats a director.
A director worth calling classic, if TCM has anything to say about it.
