The Nora Club

This morning a message was left for me from a tearful Amy Ephron... when I tried to call back, I couldn't reach her. A few hours later I got a call from a good friend of Nora and Nick's. Immediately, I thought it was Nick. You always think it's the man. He looked hardy and fit, but one never knows what silent threat lies below the surface. But it wasn't Nick, it was Nora.

Nora had a virulent kind of leukemia that had been kept at bay for many years. No one knew. Not even her best friends. That is the way she wanted to live her life -- and one more thing for me to admire about her.

I had a schoolgirl crush on Nora. She was the most erudite person I have ever met. Nora was cool: a Jewish ice princess. It was high school all over again and I wanted to be close to the best and smartest girl. We had been invited to her house a couple of times, and she to ours, and we occasionally ate out in New York restaurants. We saw each other at parties, we shared many friends in common. I remember at one event she greeted Annette Bening with warm hugs and kisses. I was so jealous.

Her writing was flip and deep. She thought about things, everyday things, and then wrote about them in the most approachable way. Like "Come on girls, we see this thing alike, don't we?" Then you belonged to the Nora Club. It reminded me, only more so, of the way I felt in my early teens when I first thought of myself as a thinking person, not just a reactive person... when I realized I could figure things out and have a point of view. Nora made millions of women think about themselves and what made them women... the thoughts and feelings that they had -- and if you got it; you were a card-carrying member.

At the same event where she greeted Annette Bening, I said to her, "Sometime, will you hug me the way you hugged Annette?"

And she did.

 

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Comments

[ginadeoliveira2008]

02:58 PM on 07/01/2012

I like to imagine wherever Nora is she is surrounded by such deep, numerous, thankful feelings of gratitude and love from oh so many of us!

[Sherman Yellen]

08:42 AM on 06/27/2012

Sad day. Nora dead. Knew her well when we were all young in NYC before she became the public voice of so many smart and gifted women, and the great, successful entertainer she was. She cooked great meals, made good, funny talk, no, she was not Dorothy Parker, she was what she was - Nora Ephron, child of Hollywood and a woman of New York. Too young to die. We need her smart, sane, acerbic voice making sense out of all the nonsense in these troubled times, RIP

[jackiwhitford]

05:52 AM on 06/27/2012

What a wonderful tribute. You are my hero because you just inspired me with an AHA moment when you talked about reacting vs. thinking and having a point of view. It is obvious Nora's wit and uncanny observations have rubbed off on you. Thanks for sharing.

[Amin David Dawdy]

05:50 AM on 06/27/2012

A kind word, a heart-felt hug cost nothing to give and are worth so much. That hug will be cherished forever!

[d leniceklor]

04:23 AM on 06/27/2012

What a wonderful memorial to Nora Ephron. I felt Nora Ephon could make you feel like you had just found the best girl friend in the world. I will really miss her. Smart, funny, profound--and could she make you laugh! Thank you for expressing so lovingly and beautifully what I and I am sure many other women felt about her.

[unitron]

12:09 AM on 06/27/2012

"I had a schoolgirl crush on Nora"

Well, I had a school*boy* crush on her.

Or more exactly a little bit on the small, slightly Barbara Feldon-ish picture of her in an edition of Helen Gurley Brown's EYE magazine, back in '68, where they were carrying an article she wrote called "Why I'll never get a divorce" or "Why I'll never get divorced", I forget which after almost half a century.

I'd like to think I'd never have teased her about that had we ever met.

[Cassandra45]

03:16 PM on 07/01/2012

I bet she would've loved to be teased about it.