Nora Ephron the famed filmmaker, director, and screenwriter among other things passed away today at age 71.

Romantic comedies were redefined with Ephron at bat. She received an Oscar nomination for When Harry Met Sally, and later went on to direct Tom Hanks hits Sleepless In Seattle and You’ve Got Mail. Ephron’s last film was Meryl Streep’s Julie and Julia in 2009.

3 Academy Award nominations in her lifetime and a lot of respect amongst her peers, Ephron will forever be garnered as one of the best in her genres. Steven Spielberg said the truest statement about his fellow director.

“Nora knows how so easily to make us laugh and to make us cry and embrace the human comedy of it all. And she does it without any bathroom humor.”

Besides working on memorable movies, Ephron had a personal life that could’ve been a flick as well when she was married to the Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein, who she had two sons by. She then went on to marry another screenwriter, Nicholas Pileggi.

The strong willed woman spent her last days very ill with leukemia, which was kept hush hush until word was out that she passed.

She was a true gift to the world of cinema and for that, we say thank you Nora Ephron.