Nora Ephron is dead at 71.

Ephron died of complications from myelodysplasia, a blood disorder she was diagnosed with six years ago, The Washington Post reports.

The beloved screenwriter, who brought to life award-winning films including"Silkwood," "When Harry Met Sally...," "Sleepless in Seattle," "You've Got Mail"and, most recently "Julie & Julia," belonged to America's top tier of filmmakers, but her talents extended far beyond Hollywood. Ephron was also an accomplished essayist, novelist and reporter, not to mention the Editor-at-Large of The Huffington Post.

Raised in Beverly Hills, Ephron graduated from Wellesley College before beginning her career as a journalist at the New York Post. She then went on to write about the 1970s women's movement for Esquire.

"Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady," Ephron told Wellesley's Class of 1996 in a commencement speech. "I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women."

Ephron had the wit and the guts to follow her own advice.

"She was the funniest feminist, or pseudofeminist, depending on whom you ask,"Ariel Levy observed in a 2009 profile of Ephron published by The New Yorker.

In her work and in her life, Ephron refused to settle for predictability. "Every 10 years or so there was a moment when I'd say, even subconsciously, 'Is that all there is?'" she told Ladies' Home Journal in 2009. "You've got to find ways to keep it fresh for yourself. To do the thing, as they say, that is a stretch."

In 1976, Ephron married Washington Post journalist Carl Bernstein (she was previously married to writer Dan Greenburg for nine years) on the heels of his induction into the journalism hall of fame. Bernstein and his fellow reporter Bob Woodward had chased down the Watergate scandal, which ended the presidency of President Richard Nixon.

"Carl and Nora were the Brad and Jen of the early eighties," Levy wrote.

Like many power couples, this one ended in divorce -- after four years.

Following her second divorce, Ephron wrote the Academy Award-winnin