Close-knit sisters
If you ask women about their clothes, they end up telling you about their lives. There were never such devoted sisters as the writers Nora and Delia Ephron; and outward appearances were everything when they were growing up in Beverly Hills in the late 1940s and early 1950s with alcoholic but high-flying parents.
Although their mother and father, Phoebe and Henry Ephron, had a successful working partnership as co-writers of such classic Hollywood films as Daddy Long Legs and There’s No Business Like Show Business, they would brawl with each other at night like George and Martha from Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
A nurse and a cook looked after their children’s needs, with Nora, the second-eldest Delia and their two baby sisters Hallie and Amy often identically dressed to save time; their career-obsessed mother rarely took them clothes shopping. All four sisters bonded from the start, helped by the psychology of lookalike outfits. ‘My parents were distracted by their own problems so much that we had to depend on each other,’ explains Delia.
And since their adored but mischief- making father liked to ‘cause uproar any way he could’ by playing one sister off against the other, the girls formed a tight unit for mutual protection. ‘He loved trying to stir up trouble and envy between us,’ adds Delia, describing an over-achieving hothouse atmosphere in which their ‘helicopter’ parents would hover over them as they did their homework and urge them to become professional writers (which all four girls duly did).
Nora (left) and Delia (right), between the ages of eight and four, at home in Beverly Hills
The glamorous Nora, who died from leukaemia in 2012 at the age of 71, became the most high profile of them all as the screenwriter/director/ producer of such hits as Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless In Seattle, Bewitched and You’ve Got Mail. The last two, along with Hanging Up and The Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants, were co-written with Delia, as was a stage play – the funny/sad Love, Loss And What I Wore.
It premiered off-Broadway three years before Nora died, with Delia now describing this final sisterly collaboration as ‘our last baby’.
The emotional stories behind women’s clothes proved the perfect shared project for sisters who had learned that the way we wore was often the key to the way we were.
For Delia, the play – now receiving its UK premiere at the theatre next door to George and Amal Clooney in celebrity-studded Sonning, Berkshire – brings back so many poignant memories of the big sister who was such a major part of her life. As Delia, now 71 herself, puts it, ‘I never expected to spend one day on Earth without Nora. She always said that we shared half a brain, since we were so similar.’
It was the stylish, forthright Nora who first gave Delia grown-up clothes lessons that became life lessons. ‘When I first moved East to go to college, we shopped a lot together. She found me my first apartment and even took me to buy my first coat at the Manhattan department store Saks.
‘Having lived in eternal sunshine on the West Coast, I didn’t even own one. She was a force of nature right out of the womb, she adored and bossed me around and I followed her around like an adoring little muffin.’
The day Delia met her second, current husband, playwright Jerome ‘Jerry’ Kass, she was wearing a favourite raspberry V-neck top that made her feel ‘fabulous’ after an unhappy starter marriage to a college professor. Jerry must have liked her in it too, because they fell in love with each other on the spot; the romantic memory of that raspberry top is now, she says, ‘etched on my heart’. It was Delia, in turn, who offered emotional support to her big sister after Nora’s power-couple marriage to Watergate investigative journalist Carl Bernstein ended because of his 1979 affair with Jim Callaghan’s daughter Margaret Jay, wife of the then British Ambassador to the US , Peter Jay. As a still-angry Delia wrote years later in her 2013 autobiography, Sister Mother Husband Dog (etc), ‘Carl betrayed her when Nora was seven months pregnant.’ Yet Nora got her revenge by turning the experience into a lightly fictionalised bestselling novel, 1983’s Heartburn, which became a hit film starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.
Delia reveals how Nora appeared to her in a dream one night after her death, clad in the kind of ‘magical’ taffeta frock she liked to wear in her carefree youth in the 1960s and 1970s.
Left: Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally. Right: The cast of 2005’s The Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants
‘She loved bell-bottom pants, crocheted dresses, very short, cute colourful clothes,’ recalls Delia. ‘But later on Nora wore black a lot, like me, which is why we put a jokey ode to the colour black in the play. She looked so chic in it: she had perfect hair, she was skinnier than me as we got older, and I was a little envious of that, but I think she had much more discipline than me in that department. She was such a strong character.’
Yet Delia has learned to develop the same inner strength, outwardly expressed with favourite garments such as her ‘black leather pants, which I wear to publishers’ meetings when I want to look confident,’ she explains.
‘Finding yourself as a woman is completely wrapped up in clothes. You reinvent yourself from the outside in, it’s a way to find out who you are. I’m a much cosier person than my mother was; I love girlfriendy things. I love to shop.’
Love, Loss And What I Wore, whose cast includes Rula Lenska and Louise Jameson, even features a character based on Nora, wryly joking about the nightmare search for the perfect bag. As Delia recalls, Nora always knew how to choose the most brilliant presents.
‘Towards the end of her life, she gave Jerry and me the most lovely quilted, down jackets as a Christmas present; she always knew what I would enjoy. Sisters,’ she concludes, ‘are always in each other’s heads.’
Love, Loss & What I Wore runs at The Mill At Sonning, Berkshire, until 26 September: 0118-969 8000, www.millatsonning.com
Although their mother and father, Phoebe and Henry Ephron, had a successful working partnership as co-writers of such classic Hollywood films as Daddy Long Legs and There’s No Business Like Show Business, they would brawl with each other at night like George and Martha from Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
A nurse and a cook looked after their children’s needs, with Nora, the second-eldest Delia and their two baby sisters Hallie and Amy often identically dressed to save time; their career-obsessed mother rarely took them clothes shopping. All four sisters bonded from the start, helped by the psychology of lookalike outfits. ‘My parents were distracted by their own problems so much that we had to depend on each other,’ explains Delia.
And since their adored but mischief- making father liked to ‘cause uproar any way he could’ by playing one sister off against the other, the girls formed a tight unit for mutual protection. ‘He loved trying to stir up trouble and envy between us,’ adds Delia, describing an over-achieving hothouse atmosphere in which their ‘helicopter’ parents would hover over them as they did their homework and urge them to become professional writers (which all four girls duly did).
Nora (left) and Delia (right), between the ages of eight and four, at home in Beverly HillsThe glamorous Nora, who died from leukaemia in 2012 at the age of 71, became the most high profile of them all as the screenwriter/director/ producer of such hits as Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless In Seattle, Bewitched and You’ve Got Mail. The last two, along with Hanging Up and The Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants, were co-written with Delia, as was a stage play – the funny/sad Love, Loss And What I Wore.
It premiered off-Broadway three years before Nora died, with Delia now describing this final sisterly collaboration as ‘our last baby’.
The emotional stories behind women’s clothes proved the perfect shared project for sisters who had learned that the way we wore was often the key to the way we were.
For Delia, the play – now receiving its UK premiere at the theatre next door to George and Amal Clooney in celebrity-studded Sonning, Berkshire – brings back so many poignant memories of the big sister who was such a major part of her life. As Delia, now 71 herself, puts it, ‘I never expected to spend one day on Earth without Nora. She always said that we shared half a brain, since we were so similar.’
It was the stylish, forthright Nora who first gave Delia grown-up clothes lessons that became life lessons. ‘When I first moved East to go to college, we shopped a lot together. She found me my first apartment and even took me to buy my first coat at the Manhattan department store Saks.
‘Having lived in eternal sunshine on the West Coast, I didn’t even own one. She was a force of nature right out of the womb, she adored and bossed me around and I followed her around like an adoring little muffin.’
The day Delia met her second, current husband, playwright Jerome ‘Jerry’ Kass, she was wearing a favourite raspberry V-neck top that made her feel ‘fabulous’ after an unhappy starter marriage to a college professor. Jerry must have liked her in it too, because they fell in love with each other on the spot; the romantic memory of that raspberry top is now, she says, ‘etched on my heart’. It was Delia, in turn, who offered emotional support to her big sister after Nora’s power-couple marriage to Watergate investigative journalist Carl Bernstein ended because of his 1979 affair with Jim Callaghan’s daughter Margaret Jay, wife of the then British Ambassador to the US , Peter Jay. As a still-angry Delia wrote years later in her 2013 autobiography, Sister Mother Husband Dog (etc), ‘Carl betrayed her when Nora was seven months pregnant.’ Yet Nora got her revenge by turning the experience into a lightly fictionalised bestselling novel, 1983’s Heartburn, which became a hit film starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.
Delia reveals how Nora appeared to her in a dream one night after her death, clad in the kind of ‘magical’ taffeta frock she liked to wear in her carefree youth in the 1960s and 1970s.
Left: Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally. Right: The cast of 2005’s The Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants‘She loved bell-bottom pants, crocheted dresses, very short, cute colourful clothes,’ recalls Delia. ‘But later on Nora wore black a lot, like me, which is why we put a jokey ode to the colour black in the play. She looked so chic in it: she had perfect hair, she was skinnier than me as we got older, and I was a little envious of that, but I think she had much more discipline than me in that department. She was such a strong character.’
Yet Delia has learned to develop the same inner strength, outwardly expressed with favourite garments such as her ‘black leather pants, which I wear to publishers’ meetings when I want to look confident,’ she explains.
‘Finding yourself as a woman is completely wrapped up in clothes. You reinvent yourself from the outside in, it’s a way to find out who you are. I’m a much cosier person than my mother was; I love girlfriendy things. I love to shop.’
Love, Loss And What I Wore, whose cast includes Rula Lenska and Louise Jameson, even features a character based on Nora, wryly joking about the nightmare search for the perfect bag. As Delia recalls, Nora always knew how to choose the most brilliant presents.
‘Towards the end of her life, she gave Jerry and me the most lovely quilted, down jackets as a Christmas present; she always knew what I would enjoy. Sisters,’ she concludes, ‘are always in each other’s heads.’
Love, Loss & What I Wore runs at The Mill At Sonning, Berkshire, until 26 September: 0118-969 8000, www.millatsonning.com