西雅圖為她不眠

Writer and Filmmaker With a Genius for Humor

西雅圖為她不眠

Nora Ephron, an essayist and humorist in the Dorothy Parker mold (only smarter and funnier, some said) who became one of her era’s most successful screenwriters and filmmakers, making romantic comedy hits like “Sleepless in Seattle” and “When Harry Met Sally...,” died Tuesday night in Manhattan. She was 71.

諾拉·艾芙隆(Nora Ephron)，一位桃樂絲·帕克(Dorothy Parker)式的(不過據(jù)一些人看來，艾芙隆要更聰明、更詼諧)散文家、幽默作家，是她那個時代最成功的劇作家和電影人，拍攝過幾部成功的浪漫喜劇，比如《西雅圖未眠夜》(Sleepless in Seattle)和《當(dāng)哈利遇到莎莉》(When Harry Met Sally)，周二晚她在曼哈頓去世，享年71歲。

The cause was pneumonia brought on by acute myeloid leukemia, her son Jacob Bernstein said.

她的兒子雅各布·伯恩斯坦(Jacob Bernstein)說，艾芙隆的死因是急性白血病引發(fā)的肺炎。

In a commencement address she delivered in 1996 at Wellesley College, her alma mater, Ms. Ephron recalled that women of her generation weren’t expected to do much of anything. But she wound up having several careers, all of them successfully and many of them simultaneously.

1996年，艾芙隆在母校衛(wèi)斯理大學(xué)(Wellesley College)畢業(yè)典禮致詞時曾回憶說，對她那個時代的女性，人們認(rèn)為碌碌無為即是美德。但她卻從事了幾份不同的事業(yè)，每一份都取得了成功，而且有些是同時進行的。

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. Her later box-office success included “You’ve Got Mail” and “Julie & Julia.” By the end of her life, though remaining remarkably youthful looking, she had even become something of a philosopher about age and its indignities.

她曾是記者、博客作者、散文家、小說家、劇作家，奧斯卡獎提名編劇，也是電影導(dǎo)演——在電影行業(yè)，導(dǎo)演這個位置無論是在過去，還是在現(xiàn)在，都被男性一統(tǒng)天下，她可謂是一個異數(shù)。她在后期取得票房成功的電影包括了《電子情書》(You've Got Mail)和《美味關(guān)系》(Julie & Julia)。在晚年時，雖然自己保養(yǎng)得相當(dāng)年輕，不過在論及衰老和與之相伴的恥辱時，她更像是個哲學(xué)家。

“Why do people write books that say it’s better to be older than to be younger?” she wrote in “I Feel Bad About My Neck,” her 2006 best-selling collection of essays. “It’s not better. Even if you have all your marbles, you’re constantly reaching for the name of the person you met the day before yesterday.”

“為什么那些寫書的人總是念叨著，年長比年輕要好?” 她在2006年的暢銷散文集《我可憐的脖子》(I Feel Bad About My Neck)中寫道：“不可能啊!就算你擁有了睿智，可你還是想破腦袋都想不起來昨天碰到的那個人叫什么名字。”

寫作是她的家族生意

Nora Ephron was born on May 19, 1941, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the eldest of four sisters, all of whom became writers. That was no surprise; writing was the family business. Her father, Henry, and her mother, the former Phoebe Wolkind, were Hollywood screenwriters who wrote, among other films, “Carousel,” “There’s No Business Like Show Business” and “Captain Newman, M.D.”

諾拉·艾芙隆于1941年5月19日生于曼哈頓的上西區(qū)，是四姐妹中的長女，幾個女孩后來都成了作家。這并不讓人意外;寫作就是她們的家族生意。她的父親亨利和母親菲比(原名菲比·沃爾金德[Phoebe Wolkind])都是好萊塢的劇作家，寫過的作品包括《天上人間》(Carousel)、《娛樂世界》(There's No Business Like Show Business)和《紐曼軍醫(yī)》(Captain Newman, M.D.)。

“Everything is copy,” her mother once said, and she and her husband proved it by turning the college-age Nora into a character in a play, later a movie, “Take Her, She’s Mine.” The lesson was not lost on Ms. Ephron, who seldom wrote about her own children but could make sparkling copy out of almost anything else: the wrinkles on her neck, her apartment, cabbage strudel, Teflon pans and the tastelessness of egg-white omelets.

“一切都是摹本，”她母親曾這樣說，而她和丈夫確實也證明了這一點，他們將大學(xué)時代的諾拉寫成一部戲劇中的角色，后來又編進電影《帶走她，她是我的》(Take Her, She's Mine)里。這個經(jīng)驗對艾芙隆也同樣適用，她雖然幾乎從未寫過自己的子女，但卻可以對其他萬事萬物做出動人的描摹：爬上她脖頸的皺紋，她的公寓，白菜餡卷餅，特氟龍平底鍋，還有炒雞蛋白的寡淡無味。

She turned her painful breakup with her second husband, the Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein, into a best-selling novel, “Heartburn,” which she then recycled into a successful movie starring Jack Nicholson as a philandering husband and Meryl Streep as a quick-witted version of Ms. Ephron herself.

她把與第二任丈夫、水門事件記者卡爾·伯恩斯坦(Carl Bernstein)痛苦的離婚寫成了暢銷小說《心痛》(Heartburn)，之后又把它翻拍成了一部賣座電影，杰克·尼克爾森(Jack Nicholson)飾演花心的丈夫，梅麗爾·斯特里普(Meryl Streep)演繹的則是機智的艾芙隆本人。

When Ms. Ephron was 4, her parents moved from New York to Beverly Hills, where she grew up, graduating from Beverly Hills High School in 1958. At Wellesley, she began writing for the school newspaper, and in the summer of 1961 she was a summer intern in the Kennedy White House. She said later that perhaps her greatest accomplishment there was rescuing the speaker of the house, Sam Rayburn, from a men’s room in which he had inadvertently locked himself. In an essay for The New York Times in 2003, she said she was also probably the only intern that President John F. Kennedy had never hit on.

艾芙隆四歲那年，她父母將家從紐約搬到比弗利山，她在那里長大，1958年畢業(yè)于比弗利山高中。在馬薩諸塞州的衛(wèi)斯理大學(xué)讀書時，她開始為校報撰稿，1961年夏天，她去了肯尼迪(Kennedy)總統(tǒng)任內(nèi)的白宮進行暑期實習(xí)。后來她說，在這期間自己最大的功績，大概要算當(dāng)眾議院議長薩姆·雷伯恩 (Sam Rayburn)不小心將自己反鎖在男廁所時，她要把他解救出來。而在2003年為《紐約時報》寫的一篇隨筆中，她說，在所有白宮實習(xí)生中，自己也許是約翰·F.肯尼迪(John F. Kennedy)總統(tǒng)唯一沒有獻過殷勤的一位。

After graduation from college in 1962, she moved to New York, a city she always adored, intent on becoming a journalist. Her first job was as a mail girl at Newsweek. (There were no mail boys, she later pointed out.) Soon she was contributing to a parody of The New York Post put out during the 1962 newspaper strike. Her piece of it earned her a tryout at The Post, where the publisher, Dorothy Schiff, remarked: “If they can parody The Post, they can write for it. Hire them.”

1962年大學(xué)畢業(yè)后，她移居紐約——這是她一直深愛的城市，決意成為一名記者。她的第一份工作是在《新聞周刊》(Newsweek)作信差(后來她指出來，當(dāng)時那兒沒有男人作信差)。不久，在同年《紐約郵報》(The New York Post)罷工期間，一幫人合辦了一份模仿該報的報紙，她參與了撰稿。她的稿件為她贏得了參加該報面試的機會，當(dāng)時的出版人桃樂絲·希夫(Dorothy Schiff)說：“既然他們能模仿郵報，就能為這份報紙撰稿。把他們招進來!”

Ms. Ephron stayed at The Post for five years, covering stories like the Beatles, the Star of India robbery at the American Museum of Natural History, and a pair of hooded seals at the Coney Island aquarium that refused to mate.

艾芙隆在郵報工作了五年，報道內(nèi)容包括了披頭士樂隊(the Beatles)、美國自然歷史博物館“印度之星”藍寶石被搶劫事件，以及科尼島水族館里的兩頭冠海豹拒絕交配。

“The Post was a terrible newspaper in the era I worked there,” she wrote, but added that the experience taught her to write short and to write around a subject, since the kinds of people she was assigned to cover were never going to give her much interview time.

“我在那里的時候，郵報是份糟糕的報紙，”她曾寫道，不過她又補充說，這份經(jīng)歷讓她學(xué)會了將文章寫短，以及圍繞報道對象外圍進行寫作，因為她采訪的那些人都不可能給她充分的采訪時間。

In the late 1960s Ms. Ephron turned to magazine journalism, at Esquire and New York mostly. She quickly made a name for herself by writing frank, funny personal essays — about the smallness of her breasts, for example — and tart, sharply observed profiles of people like Ayn Rand, Helen Gurley Brown and the composer and best-selling poet Rod McKuen. Some of these articles were controversial. In one, she criticized Betty Friedan for conducting a “thoroughly irrational” feud with Gloria Steinem; in another, she discharged a withering assessment of Women’s Wear Daily.

20世紀(jì)60年代末，艾芙隆轉(zhuǎn)戰(zhàn)雜志，主要在《君子》(Esquire)和《紐約》(New York)雜志工作。很快她就因?qū)懧收妗⒃溨C的個人散文而小有名氣——比方說在文中，她會談到自己的平胸;此外她也寫文字尖刻、觀察細(xì)致入微的人物特寫，報道對象包括安·蘭德(Ayn Rand)、海倫·格蕾·布朗(Helen Gurley Brown)和作家兼暢銷詩人羅德·麥昆(Rod McKuen)。其中一些作品引發(fā)了爭議。在一篇文章中，她指責(zé)貝蒂·弗里丹(Betty Friedan)導(dǎo)演了一場與葛勞瑞婭·斯坦能(Gloria Steinem)之間“完全不可理喻”的爭端;而在另一篇文章中，她對《女裝日報》(Women's Wear Daily)的評價極盡諷刺之能事。

But all her articles were characterized by humor and honesty, written in a clear, direct, understated style marked by an impeccable sense of when to deploy the punchline. (Many of her articles were assembled in the collections “Wallflower at the Orgy,” “Crazy Salad” and “Scribble Scribble.”)

但她的文章以幽默和坦誠為特點，風(fēng)格清晰、直接、低調(diào)，對于在什么地方拋出妙語，她有種完美的分寸感(她的許多文章收錄在這三本合集中：《派對壁花》[Wallflower at the Orgy]、《瘋狂沙拉》[Wallflower at the Orgy]和《潦草數(shù)筆》[Scribble Scribble])。

Ms. Ephron made as much fun of herself as of anyone else. She was labeled a practitioner of the New Journalism, with its embrace of novelistic devices in the name of reaching a deeper truth, but she always denied the connection. “I am not a new journalist, whatever that is,” she once wrote. “I just sit here at the typewriter and bang away at the old forms.”

艾芙隆在挖苦自己時，跟挖苦旁人同樣不留情面。她被貼上了“新新聞主義”踐行者的標(biāo)簽，認(rèn)為是廣泛運用了小說的寫作技巧，挖掘到了更深刻的事實，但她一直抗拒這種聯(lián)系。她曾寫道：“我不是新記者，不管這究竟是什么勞什子。我只是坐在打字機前，一個勁兒地爬著舊格子。”

她是個“彪悍的人”

Ms. Ephron got into the movie business more or less by accident after her marriage to Mr. Bernstein in 1976. He and Bob Woodward, his partner in the Watergate investigation, were unhappy with William Goldman’s script for the movie version of their book “All the President’s Men,” so Mr. Bernstein and Ms. Ephron took a stab at rewriting it. Their version was ultimately not used, but it was a useful learning experience, she later said, and it brought her to the attention of people in Hollywood.

艾芙隆在1976年與伯恩斯坦結(jié)婚后，或多或少是在無意間進入了電影業(yè)。伯恩斯坦與合作進行水門事件調(diào)查的鮑伯·伍德沃德(Bob Woodward)合著了《總統(tǒng)班底》(All the President's Men)一書，兩人對威廉·戈德曼(William Goldman)改編的電影劇本不是很滿意，于是伯恩斯坦與艾芙隆想試試自己做改編。他們重寫的這個版本最終沒能用上，但她后來說，這是一次有益的學(xué)習(xí)經(jīng)歷，讓好萊塢的人注意到了她。

Her first screenplay, written with her friend Alice Arlen, was for “Silkwood,” a 1983 film based on the life of Karen Silkwood, who died under suspicious circumstances while investigating abuses at a plutonium plant where she had worked. Ms. Arlen was in film school then, and Ms. Ephron had scant experience writing for anything other than the page. But Mike Nichols, who directed the movie (which starred Ms. Streep and Kurt Russell), said that the script made an immediate impression on him.

她的第一部劇本是與朋友愛麗絲·阿倫(Alice Arlen)共同編寫的《絲克伍事件》(Silkwood)，這部電影拍于1983年，根據(jù)凱倫·絲克伍(Karen Silkwood)的生平改編，絲克伍在調(diào)查自己工作的一家生產(chǎn)钚的工廠危害公共安全事件時去世，死因可疑。當(dāng)時阿倫在讀電影學(xué)院，而艾芙隆除了給報刊寫過東西，沒有一點相關(guān)經(jīng)驗。但該片(由梅麗爾·斯特里普和庫爾特·拉塞爾[Kurt Russell]聯(lián)袂出演)導(dǎo)演邁克·尼科爾斯(Mike Nichols)說，他一看這個本子，就留下了很好的印象。

But it was her script for “When Harry Met Sally...,” which became a hit Rob Reiner movie in 1989 starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, that established Ms. Ephron’s gift for romantic comedy and for delayed but happy endings that reconcile couples who are clearly meant for each other but don’t know it.

1989年，導(dǎo)演羅伯·萊納將她的劇本《當(dāng)哈利遇到莎莉》拍成電影，由比利·克里斯托(Billy Crystal)和梅格·瑞恩(Meg Ryan)主演，電影大獲成功。艾芙隆撰寫浪漫喜劇的天賦這才得到了公認(rèn)，她善于安排一對明明是天作之合佳侶，卻懵懂不知，好事多磨終于有個大團圓結(jié)局。

Her first effort at directing, “This Is My Life” (1992), with a screenplay by Ms. Ephron and her sister Delia, based on a novel by Meg Wolitzer about a single mother trying to become a standup comedian, was a dud. But Ms. Ephron redeemed herself in 1993 with “Sleepless in Seattle” (she shared the screenwriting credits), which brought Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan together so winningly that they were cast again in “You’ve Got Mail.”

她首次嘗試導(dǎo)演，是在1992年拍攝《這是我的生活》(This is My Life)，劇本由她和妹妹迪莉婭(Delia)合寫，根據(jù)梅格·沃利茲(Meg Wolitzer)的小說改編，說的是一個單親媽媽努力想要成為脫口秀藝人的故事，這次嘗試并不成功。但在1993年艾芙隆憑借著《西雅圖未眠夜》收復(fù)失地(她也參與了編劇)，因為這部劇中湯姆·漢克斯(Tom Hanks)和梅格·瑞恩的合作十分成功，在拍攝《電子情書》時，她再次請兩人出演。

Among the other movies Ms. Ephron wrote and directed were “Lucky Numbers” (2000), “Bewitched” (2005) and, her last, “Julie & Julia” (2009), in which Ms. Streep played Julia Child.

艾芙隆參與編寫和導(dǎo)演的電影還包括《幸運數(shù)字》(Lucky Numbers，2000年)、《家有仙妻》(Bewitched，2005年)和最后一部電影《美味關(guān)系》(2009年)，在該片中斯特里普飾演茱麗婭·柴爾德(Julia Child)。

She and Ms. Streep had been friends since they worked on “Silkwood” together. “Nora just looked at every situation and cocked her head and thought, ‘Hmmmm, how can I make this more fun?’ ” Ms. Streep wrote in an e-mail on Tuesday.

在合作《絲克伍事件》時，她和斯特里普成為朋友。“諾拉無論是面對何種局面，總會揚起頭說，‘嗯，我怎么才能把它弄得更有意思些?’”在周二發(fā)來的郵件中斯特里普這樣寫道。

Ms. Ephron earned three Oscar nominations for best screenplay, for “Silkwood,” “Sleepless in Seattle” and “When Harry Met Sally....” But in all her moviemaking years she never gave up writing in other forms. Two essay collections, “I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Reflections on Being a Woman” (2006) and “I Remember Nothing” (2010), were both best sellers.

艾芙隆分別因為電影《絲克伍事件》、《西雅圖未眠夜》和《當(dāng)哈利遇到莎莉》，三次獲得奧斯卡最佳編劇獎提名，不過在從事電影生涯時，她也從未放棄過其他形式的寫作。她的兩部散文合集，《我可憐的脖子：以及其他身為女人的感想》(I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Reflections on Being a Woman，2006年)和《我什么都記不住了》(I Remember Nothing，2010年)，都是暢銷書。

Several years ago, Ms. Ephron learned that she had myelodysplastic syndrome, a pre-leukemic condition, but she kept the illness a secret from all but a few intimates and continued to lead a busy, sociable life.

幾年前，艾芙隆得知自己罹患骨髓增生異常綜合征，這是一種將轉(zhuǎn)歸為白血病的病癥，但她把病情隱瞞了下來，繼續(xù)過著忙碌、交友廣闊的生活，只有幾個身邊人知道這個消息。

“She had this thing about not wanting to whine,” the writer Sally Quinn said on Tuesday. “She didn’t like self-pity. It was always, you know, ‘Suck it up.’ ”

“她這人不喜歡抱怨，”作家薩莉·奎恩(Sally Quinn)在周二說道：“她不喜歡自怨自艾，總是把什么事情都‘自己吞進肚里’。”

Ms. Ephron’s first marriage, to the writer Dan Greenburg, ended in divorce, as did her marriage to Mr. Bernstein. In 1987 she married Nicholas Pileggi, the author of the books “Wiseguy” and “Casino.” (Her contribution to “Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure,” edited by Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser, reads: “Secret to life, marry an Italian.”)

艾芙隆與作家丹·格林伯格(Dan Greenburg)的第一段婚姻以離婚告終，與伯恩斯坦的婚姻同樣如此。1987年，她嫁給了尼古拉斯·派勒吉(Nicholas Pileggi)，他是《盜亦有道》(Wiseguy)和《賭城風(fēng)云》(Casino)的作者。

In addition to her son Jacob Bernstein, a journalist who writes frequently for the Styles section of The Times, Ms. Ephron is survived by Mr. Pileggi; another son, Max Bernstein, a rock musician; and her sisters Delia Ephron; Amy Ephron, who is also a screenwriter; and Hallie Ephron, a journalist and novelist.

艾芙隆的家人包括丈夫派勒吉;兩個兒子，一個是雅各布·伯恩斯坦，他是個記者，常常為《紐約時報》的風(fēng)尚欄目撰稿，另一個是麥克斯·伯恩斯坦，他是搖滾音樂人。還有三位妹妹，分別是迪莉婭·艾芙隆;艾米·艾芙隆(Amy Ephron)，同樣是劇作家;以及做記者和小說家的哈莉·艾芙隆(Hallie Ephron)。

Another friend, Robert Gottlieb, who had edited her books since the 1970s, said that her death would be “terrible for her readers and her movie audience and her colleagues.” But “the private Nora was even more remarkable,” he added, saying she was “always there for you with a full heart plus the crucial dose of the reality principle.”

她的另一位朋友羅伯特·哥特列布(Robert Gottlieb)，自從20世紀(jì)70年代起就開始編輯她的著作，他稱艾芙隆的死“對她的讀者、她的電影觀眾和她的同事，是件很可怕的事情”。他又補充說，但“私下里的諾拉甚至要更加了不起，永遠全心全意伴隨在你左右，同時又能為你注入一劑必要的現(xiàn)實的清醒劑”。