Meg Ryan "fakes it" for Billy Crystal at Katz's Deli in "When Harry Met Sally"

Nora Ephron was a screenwriter and director with New York in her blood. And it coursed through many of her films as well.

Perhaps her most famous piece of New York City movie making was When Harry Met Sally. Ephron wrote the script for the Rob Reiner classic Billy Crystal-Meg Ryan romantic comedy. The famous “orgasm” scene where Reiner’s mom says, “I’ll have what she’s having,” took place at Katz’s Deli on the Lower East Side.

The Big Apple proved a popular backdrop for the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan vehicle — You’ve Got Mail. Ephron co-wrote and directed the movie, in which Ryan discovers that Hanks has been her secret crush all along when they meet at Riverside Park. The film uses numerous New York locales, including Zabar’s, Gray’s Papaya, and Cafe Lalo.

Of course, who could forget the duo meeting at the Empire State Building for the Sleepless in Seattle finale?

Part of her last major hit, Julie and Julia, was shot in Manhattan, featuring the blog to book to movie story of Julie Powell as she attempted every recipe in Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.”

Ephron lived, during her college years, at 110 Sullivan Street, between Prince and Spring Streets.

She died yesterday in a Manhattan hospital of pneumonia brought on by acute myeloid leukemia. She was 71. Her son, Jacob Bernstein, a contributing writer at Newsweek Daily Beast, announced the news of his mother’s death to The New York Times last night.

Jacob Bernstein, a Senior Writer for Newsweek/The Daily Beast, is getting his shot at The New York Times. Capital New York reports that Bernstein is now regularly freelancing for the Times’ Style section. He has moved to a contract writer position for Newsweek/The Daily Beast as well.

Bernstein has also written for New York, WWD, Paper and The Huffington Post. Bernstein has writing and reporting in the blood. He’s the son of director, producer and screenwriter Nora Ephron and journalist Carl Bernstein.

Last week FishbowlNY reported that Town & Country editor-in-chief Stephen Drucker is leaving at the end of February and will be replaced by Jay Fielden.  At that time it appeared that Drucker was simply leaving on his own terms, however in today’s Media Ink column Keith Kelly cites a Gawker article that claimed Drucker ran into some problems due to his preference to feature the Barefoot Contessa, Ira Garten, in his magazines.  Garten’s frequent appearances in Town & Country posed a conflict-of-interest as Drucker’s partner, Frank Newbold, works with her on merchandising and sponsorship projects.

Garten has served as a contributor for House Beautiful and appeared on cover of Town & Country alongside writer Nora Ephron this past December.  Gawker’s speculation has been shot down by Hearst as a company spokesperson said that Drucker and Garten’s relationship had no effect on his exit from T&C.

Stephen and Ina have had a professional and personal relationship for many years. She and Nora Ephron had just published new books at the time — plus they are personal friends — so it made sense to put them on the cover together. Stephen felt they made great T&C subjects, and he was right as evidenced by how well that issue sold.

While his ties to Garten may not have put him on the hot seat, Drucker’s issues with publisher Jim Taylor and the title’s advertising and circulation struggles may be the real reasons behind his departure from T&C next month.

— DIANE CLEHANE

I don’t know whether it was the wintry weather or the holiday decor, but the usual suspects were in a festive mood at Michael’s today. There were air kisses all around the dining room as the movers and shakers mingled while waiting for their lunch dates to arrive.  No sitting at the table glued to their iPhones today! So, rather than observe the random celebrity holding court (I’m really hoping to see Michael Douglas back here in fine form again soon), I watched the regulars launch into celebration mode by trading their ice teas for some red wine. ‘Tis the season!

Here’s the rundown on today’s crowd:

1. The ‘Imber Gang’: Dr. Gerald Imber, Jerry Della Femina, Andy Bergman and Jeff Greenfield

2. Bloomberg’s Andy Lack

3. ‘Mayor’ Joe Armstrong, who is just back from London, was pulling a double shift by  having two back-to-back lunches. “I’ll have to do double duty through Christmas to catch up!” Joe told me. His noon-time date was O magazine’s  book guru Sara Nelson; Kerry Kennedy arrived for Act Two.

4. Uber agent Esther Newberg and a sunny looking blonde gal we didn’t recognize.

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Today’s “what will they come up with next?” headline comes courtesy of Arianna Huffington and Nora Ephron.  As discussed in early October by our friends over at WebNewser, the two high-profile divorcees will launch a divorce themed page to The Huffington Post today.  Ephron’s attitude towards divorce grew into the tagline and underlying theme for Huff Post Divorce:

“My theory is that marriages come and go, but divorces are forever,” said Ephron.

Ephron penned Heartburn, a novel loosely based on her own marital issues with journalist Carl Bernstein.  After ending her marriage with Bernstein in 1979, Ephron is equipped to share her insights with HuffPo divorcees seeking advice in the wake of their divorce.

Huff Post Divorce will also feature columns by a host of contributors that will discuss everything from legal, financial, and personal issues to news on recent Hollywood divorces.  Readers will be encouraged to chime in on an open forum to share insights from their own divorces.

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Tonight, The Huffington Post is holding a special ceremony to celebrate its list of “Game Changers,” the “innovators, mavericks and leaders who are changing their fields and inspiring others to follow in their footsteps.”

This year’s ceremony happens to include quite a few bold names in the media industry:

• Anderson Cooper will present to Sean Penn
• Nora Ephron will present to Mayor Mike Bloomberg
• Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough will present to Geoffrey Canada
• Jann Wenner will present to Michael Hastings and Matt Taibbi
• Julian Bond will present to Ted Olson
• Dylan Ratigan will present to Seth Reams
• Mayor Cory Booker will present to Biz Stone and Livia Stone
• Arianna Huffington will present to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

Other attendees slated to appear tonight include reality tv star and health expert Bethenny Frankel, TV and radio personality Gayle King, fashion designer Prabal Gurung, models Paulina Porizkova and Crystal Renn, former New York Governor and current TV host Eliot Spitzer and his co-host Kathleen Parker, PR whiz Kelly Cutrone, and many others.

This morning, mediabistro.com’s senior editor Donya Blaze spoke with New Yorker columnist and author of “Googled: The End of the World as we Know It,” Ken Auletta for our upcoming video series Media Beat. In addition to discussing the book (Nora Ephron helped him out with the title), we asked Auletta about the Letterman extortion plot:

• We’ll be launching MediaBeat soon, on mediabistro.com, across our blog network and on MediaBeat.com featuring the biggest names in media, PR, advertising and TV. Stay tuned…

Mika Brzezinski, Nora Ephron, Delia Ephron and Lesley Jane Seymour.

Yesterday, we stopped by More magazine’s Reinvention Convention at Pier 60 at Chelsea Piers just in time to see “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski dump the contents of her purse out. On purpose.

The stunt was part of the lunchtime entertainment, which featured a Q&A with Nora Ephron, Delia Ephron and More editor-in-chief Lesley Jane Seymour, centered around the Ephron sisters’ recent play, “Love, Loss & What I Wore,” based on the book of the same name by Ilene Beckerman.

The play, in which actresses read monologues about their memories and the clothes they were wearing during significant events, includes a section on purses called “I Hate My Purse.” “Your purse is you and unless you are a very weird person, it’s a mess,” Nora said, prompting Brzezinski — the day’s emcee — to show just how messy her blue leather shoulder bag was. It’s contents included two sticks of deodorant, several Ziploc bags filled with makeup and tea bags she had swiped from the earlier in the day. Nora’s purse held a small bottle of Diet Coke, a Kindle charger (but no Kindle) and a possibly used tissue.

So what does this all have to do with reinvention? Well, the lunch was the comic relief of a day filled with panels on topics from health to technology that sought to inform and motivate the female attendees. Former First Lady Laura Bush spoke first over breakfast, and the myriad panels included a presentation by “Today” show financial contributor Jean Chatsky, an interview with New York real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran about personal reinvention and an instructive technology seminar led by The Wall Street Journal‘s Julia Angwin.

In between sessions, attendees mingled among tables set up by sponsors like Talbots and got tarot card readings. “This is awesome,” Seymour told us. “I feel like it’s my wedding reception. I know people as readers, I know people from More.com, I know people from Twitter, from places where I used to work.”

The event, which is in its third year and will now travel to Chicago and Washington, D.C., aligns perfectly with the challenges women over 40 face in the current economy, Seymour said. “We knew this was going to be the right moment to make a push for this to be bigger than ever,” she said. “Right now we’re in a time of crisis. Maybe you thought you were going to retire and now you can’t. Or your business is folding. Or you’re afraid you’re going to lose your job. Now is a very important moment to think about reinvention.”

Seymour also said the event, which included humor, learning and fun, embodied the More voice and point of view. “I think of us as Seventeen for adults,” she said. “I think it’s telling that the line for tarot card readings is as long as the one for makeovers.”

More pictures after the jump.

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Our sister blog WebNewser has news about The Huffington Post. One week after announcing the appointment of a new CEO, the online pub has launched a new section: Huffington Post New York.

The new section, which launched yesterday with blog posts from with blog posts from Nora Ephron, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Frank Serpico and former Mayor Ed Koch, will be led by former New York Daily News reporter Dan Collins. It will also feature partnerships with more than one-dozen local outlets and employ HuffPo’s Eyes & Ears citizen-reporting unit.

Founder Arianna Huffington explained the new page in an introductory blog post:

“New York has always held a special place in the heart of HuffPosters. It definitely has for me. It was the first place in America I lived in after moving here from London in 1980. And the majority of the HuffPost team is based in New York, working out of our offices in SoHo. But whether you live in New York or not — New York is part of our national collective consciousness…HuffPost New York features our curated selection of the best New York news coverage, plus a collection of bloggers — some familiar faces you know, some we’re excited to introduce you to — who are eager to share their takes on everything from local politics to the city’s fashion, food, entertainment, real estate, sports teams, and business trends.”

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Sure, the media world shuts down in late August — and our Lunch At Michael's column takes a breather to regroup — but we wouldn't let those of you chained to your desks down. This week and next we're running favorite columns from the past year, handpicked by our LaM scribe, Diane Clehane.]

We’re always kept more than occupied checking out the bold faced names in the main dining room on our weekly visits but today our radar was truly put to the test when the usually celeb-free Garden Room was the hotbed of activity with an estrogen-fueled, invitation-only lunch hosted by Peggy Siegal for Arianna Huffington. The luncheon (where no one touched dessert) brought out the most head-spinning cross-section of alpha females, power blondes and social swans we’ve seen in a long time.

The Gotham gals we spotted: Joni Evans, Karenna Gore, Naomi Wolff (who must be so proud of Al Gore‘s newfound mojo), Zoe Baird, Nora Ephron (who seemed to be traveling incognito in her dark sunglasses while checking out the dining room on her way inside), Fern Mallis, Dayle Haddon (who somehow lost her cellphone in the fray), Fran Drescher, Karen Duffy, Arlene Dahl (sporting her favorite black patent leather newsboy cap!?!), Deborah Roberts, Erica Jong, Maria Cuomo Cole, Somers White and InStyle‘s Cindy Weber Cleary. Lunchtime chronicler Diane Clehane, who was dining with OK! editrix Sarah Ivens, got the lowdown on the crowd from Joan Rivers, who summed up the afternoon thusly: “You’re better off out here! That was a roomful of bitches in there!”

Here’s a rundown of the rest of the crowd:

Table 1. A pow-wow of beauty industry bigwigs: GCI (Global Cosmetic Industry) editor-in-chief Karen A. Newman, Marc Rosen and a table full of colleagues. A photographer from Cosmetic World/Beauty Fashion hovered nearby to capture the big doings.

2. Uberagent Esther Newberg, who was spotted picking at the plate of her guest.

3. John Josephson.

4. Herb Siegal.

5. Stanley Schuman.

6. Henry Schlieff toting a Hallmark goodie bag to his lunch with newsgals Lynn White, Rosanna Scott, Jane Hansen and Penny Crone. The tireless showman was overheard asking Charles Stevenson who was seated at David Patrick Columbia‘s table about his golf game and promising to hit the links with him soon .

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