EXCLUSIVE: 'Goodfellas' Screenwriter Nicolas Pileggi, 92, Lifts Lid on His Grief-Stricken Existence After Death of Screenwriting Icon Wife Nora Ephron
Nick Pileggi adored his late wife Nora Ephron.
March 27 2025, Updated 11:06 a.m. ET
Goodfellas writer Nick Pileggi keeps his house as a shrine to his beloved wife Nora Ephron who was killed by cancer 13 years ago.
Above his kitchen sink, two coveted Hollywood awards sit – picked up by the talented husband and wife, RadarOnline.com can reveal
The pair shared professional and personal passions.
They are both from the Writers Guild of America, honoring the best screenplays of the writer couple.
One is inscribed to Nick Pileggi for Goodfellas for 1990 and the other, from the year before, is to Ephron, for When Harry Met Sally.
"They’re there so I can see them while I’m washing the dishes," Pileggi, 92, said.
He met Ephron when both were journalists, although they were married to other people then.
A decade later, in the early Eighties, they met again, both now divorced.
Ephron's iconic work included the script for 'When Harry Met Sally.'
Nick added: "I saw her in a restaurant and said, 'Let’s have dinner.' And we never had dinner with anyone else again. Isn’t that romantic?”
In 1986, he "talked her into" marrying him.
He added: "She changed my life. Unfortunately, I was so dumb I myself didn’t really change, but she brought me alive."
Next to the sofa in his Beverly Hills home is a grand piano framed by bookshelves packed with Ephron’s favorite cookbooks.
"Nothing has changed, the house is the same as when she was here," Nick poignantly said.
The piano in his house was also Ephron’s.
Nick said: "She taught herself to play. She had two kids from her previous marriage to an idiot Italian husband, she’s writing and directing movies, she gives dinner parties, and she learns how to play the piano. Who does that?"
Ephron once said the secret to a happy life is "marry an Italian."
Nick added: "Oh gosh. For me, it’s easy: marry Nora."
Pileggi has kept Ephron's piano in his home and speaks to her as if she was alive.
Ephron died in 2012, aged 71, after a diagnosis of leukaemia that she kept secret from even her closest friends, but Pileggi talks like she's still with him.
The Hollywood legend said about his home: "We bought this place about 30 years ago. We were coming out here a lot, working on movies and staying in hotels. One day she said to me, 'We need to get a place here.' And that was that."
Pileggi is still extremely busy and has just written the new Robert De Niro gangster film The Alto Knights which is currently in movie theaters.
But his latest flick has not received rave reviews.
One critic said: "On paper, the gangster picture The Alto Knights has all the elements of a success. It stars Robert De Niro, currently on a hot streak after back-to-back successful collaborations with Martin Scorsese, with The Irishman and Killers of the Flower Moon.
"It's directed by Barry Levinson, who may have been quiet for a few years, but has made some of the best American films of the past few decades, including the similarly themed Bugsy and Oscar-winning Rain Man. And the script is by Nicholas Pileggi – another Scorsese veteran who wrote the screenplays for Goodfellas and Casino – as well as contributing to the likes of American Gangster and The Irishman.
"In other words, it should be a hit. But the runes have already declared that The Alto Knights will flop."
Pileggi's new flick has been panned by critics.
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The film chronicles the antagonistic relationship between two 1950s mob bosses, Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, with De Niro playing both men.
They were heads of rival New York crime families – the Genovese and Luciano operations – and were both known for maintaining their power through the ruthless dispatch of their enemies.
But showbiz insiders say the film will struggle to recoup its monster budget because viewers haven't warmed to 81-year-old De Niro playing both leads.
