Nora Ephron Dead at 71

Filmmaker and writer Nora Ephron has died at age 71, reports TMZ. Ephron, who wrote the screenplays for Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally, had "emerged over the past four decades as one of America's warmest and most acute chroniclers of contemporary culture," says the Washington Post in a photo tribute. But she was also, as People notes, "one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood." Other big titles include Silkwood, You've Got Mail, and Julie and Julia, not to mention her novel Heartburn and her best-selling 2006 collection of essays I Feel Bad About My Neck. Ephron died of complications from a blood disorder called myelodysplasia, which was diagnosed six years ago, reports the Post. (Its full obituary is here.)

• Salon: "Her cultural influence is so elemental ... she's like hydrogen." The site rounds up its interviews with her here.
• New York Times: "She was a journalist, a blogger, an essayist, a novelist, a playwright, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter and a movie director—a rarity in a film industry whose directorial ranks were and continue to be dominated by men." What's more, she was successful in all those things.
• Huffington Post: She "belonged to America's top tier of filmmakers, but her talents extended far beyond Hollywood."

(More Nora Ephron stories.)