By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

WRITERS GUILD EAST ANNOUNCES TRIBUTE TO NORA EPHRON AT 2013 AWARDS CEREMONY

PRESS RELEASE

February 13, 2013

AUTHOR MEG WOLITZER LEADS TRIBUTE TO AWARD-WINNING WRITER AND DIRECTOR, THE LATE NORA EPHRON, AT AWARDS EAST COAST CEREMONY

New York City – Writers Guild of America, East today announced a tribute to award-winning, screenwriter, director, playwright, author, and Guild, East member Nora Ephron. The tribute to Ephron, who died in June, will be led by the author Meg Wolitzer, whose novel, “This Is My Life,” was adapted and directed by Ephron in 1992 and presented at the Writers Guild Awards East Coast ceremony on Sunday February 17, in New York City.

“At this year’s Writers Guild Awards East Coast ceremony, we will mark the passing of one of our most distinguished and creative members. Nora Ephron’s life and body of work were those of a quintessential New Yorker, but not only did she embody the sophistication, wit and energy of our city, she was also a loyal union member who walked the picket line and talked the talk on behalf of all her fellow writers,” said Michael Winship, President, Writers Guild of America, East.

During Ephron’s storied career as a journalist, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, novelist, producer and director, she came to embody the words “Written in New York,” with her iconic set-in-New York scripted films When Harry Met Sally and You’ve Got Mail.  Her most recent New York-centric work, the play, Lucky Guy, stars actor Tom Hanks and debuts on Broadway in March 2013.

Ephron was also a longtime Guild member and ardent supporter, and in 2003 received the union’s Ian McClellan Hunter Award honoring her body of work as a writer in motion pictures.

During her nearly four decades in film, Ephron wrote or co-wrote 14 produced screenplays, and had worked on or had in development many more. She directed eight films.  Her sister Delia Ephron was a frequent collaborator, co-writing Bewitched, Hanging Up, Michael, Mixed Nuts, You’ve Got Mail, and the off-Broadway play Love, Loss and What I Wore.

Nora Ephron was nominated three times– in 1984, 1990 and 1993, respectively– for the Academy Award in the category of “Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen,” for the films Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle She was also nominated four times for the Writers Guild of America Award for Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle and Julie & Julia.

Author, friend and Guild member Meg Wolitzer will speak and present a video with clips displaying Ephron’s characteristic style and charm from her films and television interviews.

The 2013 Writers Guild Awards will be held on Sunday, February 17, 2013, simultaneously at B.B. King Blues Club in New York City and the JW Marriott in Los Angeles. For more information about the 2013 Writers Guild Awards, please visit www.wgaeast.org or www.wga.org.

The 65th Annual Writers Guild Awards East Coast ceremony is supported this year by AT&T along with sponsors Ketel One, Raphael, Blue Moon Brewing Company and Corona Light. New York Magazine is the official media sponsor for the New York awards ceremony.

The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) and Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) are labor unions representing writers in motion pictures, television, cable, digital media, and broadcast news. The Guilds negotiate and administer contracts that protect the creative and economic rights of their members; conduct programs, seminars, and events on issues of interest to writers; and present writers’ views to various bodies of government. For more information on the Writers Guild of America, East, visit www.wgaeast.org. For more information on the Writers Guild of America, West, visit www.wga.org.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon