The lone voice for women in a sea of men
The show: Everything Is Copy — Nora Ephron: Scripted & Unscripted The moment: The Esquire cover. Filmmaker Jacob Bernstein — Nora Ephron and Carl Bernstein’s son — interviews a glittering array (Meryl Streep, Mike Nichols, Barry Diller, Meg Ryan) about Ephron, who died in 2012. He also shows clips of Ephron herself.
In one, she relates how Harold Hayes, the legendary editor of Esquire magazine, offered her a column.
“What do you want to write about?” he asked. “Women,” she replied. Bernstein cuts to the cover of Esquire’s 40th anniversary edition, October 1973, which featured its 39 best contributors: Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Truman Capote, Vladimir Nabokov, Tennessee Williams, Leon Trotsky, etc.
Only two are women: Dorothy Parker and Ephron.
I was 11 in 1973, but already I loved Ephron’s writing. Everyone did. She was funny, clever, vicious, fearless. (Watching this doc, I lost count of how often someone calls her “tough” or “ambitious.”)
But looking at that cover, it’s no wonder we worshipped Ephron and still do: she was the only one. “Women” is a big topic and she had it to herself.
The doc tells great stories (Ephron hung with the best storytellers) about why she was the way she was: How her parents’ alcoholism stiffened her resolve. How her detachment enabled her to transform her flaws and heartbreaks into material. How her charm and control-freakiness merged to make her a person no one could refuse.
Mainly, though, we witness how fiercely she worked to become and remain a voice for women. If there could be only one, we’re lucky it was she. Everything Is Copy airs at various times on HBO Canada between Saturday and April 7. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on popculture moments. She usually appears Monday through Thursday.