'I'LL HAVE WHAT SHE'S HAVING'

A heart-warming new biography shows how When Harry Met Sally... and other memorable movies turned screenwriter Nora Ephron into the queen of the romcom

EVEN if you don't instantly recognise her name, you've probably seen her work. When Harry Met Sally..., Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail these are three of American screenwriter Nora Ephron's best-known movies and they're the reason why she's often credited with inventing the '90s romcom.

Nora was the one who helped millions of moviegoers to see that it's never too late to go after your dreams or to change direction in the pursuit of reinvention.

"Don't be frightened. You can always change your mind. I know: I've had four careers and three husbands," she said in a rousing speech to graduates at Wellesley College in Massachusetts in 1996.

Find what makes you happy and give it all you've got. Embrace the mess and the complications but also seek out the joy in the simplicity of life's greatest treasures: good books, good friends, good food this is the message that shines through in Nora's work. And her fans love her for it.

That's why even a decade after her death, her legacy lives on.

"Because in the great rushing loneliness of the world, when a writer's voice makes you feel befriended, you want more of it even after the person is gone, says author Meg Wolitzer.

A new biography, Nora Ephron, reveals the inspiration behind some of the beloved writer's best-known movies.

WHEN HARRY MET SALLY...

Nora often said that this was the movie that changed her life and it likewise altered the lives of almost everyone who saw it for the better. The iconic film, directed by Rob Reiner, grossed nearly $93 million worldwide and was placed firmly in the history books as a model that would come to define the romantic comedy genre for years to come.

But it almost never got made.