Nora Ephron was educated at Wellesley College, Massachusetts. She was an acclaimed essayist (Crazy Salad 1975), novelist (Heartburn 1983), and had written screenplays for several popular films, all featuring strong female characters, such as anti-nuclear activist Karen Silkwood (Silkwood (1983), co-written withAlice Arlen) and a mobster's feisty independent daughter Cookie Voltecki (Cookie (1989), also co-written with Arlen). Ephron's hard-headed sensibilities helped makeRob Reiner'sKoibitotachi no yokan (1989) a clear-eyed view of modern romance, and she earned an Oscar nomination for her original screenplay.

Ephron made her directorial debut with the comedyThis Is My Life (1992), co-scripted by her sisterDelia Ephron, which starredJulie Kavner as a single mother who struggles to establish herself as a stand-up comedienne. Ephron followed up by helming and co-writingSleepless in Seattle (1993), a romantic comedy in which loversTom Hanks andMeg Ryan are separated for most of the film. Less about love than about love in the movies, the film drew inspiration from the beloved shipboard romanceAn Affair to Remember (1957), starringCary Grant andDeborah Kerr.

Ephron was born in New York City, the daughter of stage and screen writing teamHenry Ephron andPhoebe Ephron, who used her infancy as the subject of their play "Three's a Family" and based their comedyTake Her, She's Mine (1963) on letters their daughter wrote them from college. Their screenplays includeThere's No Business Like Show Business (1954),Carousel (1956) andDesk Set (1957). Formerly married to novelistDan Greenburg and investigative journalistCarl Bernstein, Ephron was wed to crime journalist and screenwriterNicholas Pileggi, at the time of her passing, who wrote such films asGoodFellas (1990). She was of Russian Jewish descent.