Tom Hanks is seen backstage during the 84th Academy Awards in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles on February 26, 2012. UPI/Phil McCarten |
According to the Daily Express, the cast took their bows with a photograph of Ephron onstage.
"That was a tough moment," Hanks said of the tribute. "We were going to do this, and Nora and [show director] George C. Wolfe were going to walk out onstage. I miss her. What more can you say?”
Hanks called Ephron a "magnificent hang" who was "fascinated by everything."
"You could be working, and you could be talking about personal things, you could be on vacation and talking about cultural history, you could be having a very lazy breakfast and you would be talking about Saddam Hussein.
Nora Ephron in 2009. (UPI Photo/Jim Ruymen) |
Meg Ryan, Hanks' co-star in two Ephron classics, "You've Got Mail" and "Sleepless in Seattle," attended the play opening night.
“I feel like there is a wonderful spirit in this room," she told the Post.
Barbara Walters, Sting and Lorne Michaels were also in the audience.
"Her death was a terrible shock to us, so tonight is bittersweet," Walters told Inside Edition.
Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, attended Ephron's memorial service last year, where they pretended to be Ephron and her husband in a "he-said, she-said" imitation of the couple.