Mike Nichols

Credit: Startraks; PR Photos; WireImage

Nora Ephron Remembered by Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks

Originally posted 06/27/2012 09:55AM

A true trailblazer, Nora Ephron leaves behind a legacy of always knowing the right (and wittiest) thing to say. She was "an expert in all the departments of living well," according to Meryl Streep – one of many paying tribute to the late author-journalist-screenwriter-director, who died Tuesday at 71.

"You could call on her for anything: doctors, restaurants, recipes, speeches, or just a few jokes, and we all did it, constantly," Streep – who was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her role as Julia Child in Ephron's Julie & Julia (2009) – wrote in an email to The New York Times. "Nora just looked at every situation and cocked her head and thought, ‘Hmmmm, how can I make this more fun?'"

Streep wasn't the only celebrity to remember Ephron fondly.

Permalink |

Filed Under: Tributes, Heartburn, Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally, You've Got Mail, Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Meryl Streep, Mike Nichols, Nicole Kidman, Nora Ephron, Steve Martin, Tom Hanks

Credit: Brad Barket/Getty; Inset: Jason Kempin/Getty

Neil Patrick Harris Calls Tonys 'Fifty Shades of Gay'

Originally posted 06/10/2012 11:10PM

Broadway celebrated itself Sunday night – and crowned Once and playwright Bruce Norris's Clybourne Park as the season's best musical and drama, in a star-studded evening that third-time host Neil Patrick Harris called "the 66th annual Tony Awards, or, as we like to call it, Fifty Shades of Gay."

Clybourne Park, which also won a 2011 Pulitzer Prize, takes its cues from Lorraine Hansberry's 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun, about developments in a Chicago neighborhood after the Younger family has moved in and moved on. The best play Tony was that show's only win; it was bested in the straight play category by Peter and the Starcatcher, a kind of prequel to Peter Pan, which won five.

The modest Dublin-set musical Once, based on the independent 2006 movie by the same title, practically swept the musical category, winning eight Tonys, including best musical, best musical direction and best musical actor for Steve Kazee.