Hollywood’s elite turned out in droves to celebrate their beloved friend and colleague, Nora Ephron, in NYC Monday.
Celebrities — including Meg Ryan, Bette Midler, Matthew Broderick, Jon Hamm, Jennifer Westfeldt, Steven Spielberg, Lorne Michaels, Steve Martin, Kristin Chenoweth, Martha Stewart, Barbara Walters, Diane Sawyer and more — arrived at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall for a memorial service honoring the legendary screenwriter, who lost her battle with leukemia June 26.
The New York Times reports that Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, and Rosie O’Donnell were all slated to speak at the service for the native New Yorker.
Shortly after news of Ephron’s death at age 71 broke on June 26, stars who had the chance to work with the screenwriter, filmmaker and author spoke out about the indelible impact their former colleague had on Hollywood — and on them personally.
“Nora just looked at every situation and cocked her head and thought, ‘Hmmm, how can I make this more fun?’,” Streep, who played a version of Ephron in the real-life inspired film Heartburn, wrote to the New York Times last month. “You could call on her for anything; doctors, restaurants, recipes, speeches, or just a few jokes, and we all did it, constantly. She was an expert in all the departments of living well.”
“Nora Ephron was a journalist/artist who knew what was important to know; how things really worked, what was worthwhile, who was fascinating, and why,” Hanks and Rita Wilson (who starred together in Ephron’s 1993 film Sleepless in Seattle) said in a June 27 statement. “At a dinner table and on a film set she lifted us all with wisdom and wit mixed with love for us and love for life.”
