Tom Hanks Tears Up During Emotional Tribute To Late Writer-Director Nora Ephron At Close Of Her Final Play 'Lucky Guy'

Although renowned filmmaker Nora Ephron succumbed last summer of pneumonia, a complication related to her leukemia condition, her work lived on Monday night when her friend and consistent collaborator, academy award-winning actor Tom Hanks, paid tribute at the close of the writer's final creative offering.

At the close of a theater production of Ephron's play Lucky Guy on Monday night, Hanks took the curtain call opportunity to provide an emotional homage to his late friend and writer-director.

"That was a tough moment," Hanks said, according to the Daily Express. "We were going to do this, and Nora and [Lucky Guy director] George C. Wolfe were going to walk out onstage. I miss her. What more can you say?"

Hanks continued his plaudits of Ephron by referring to her as a "magnificent" friend who had a fascination for all aspects of life, the site reported.

"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," Hanks added during the curtain call.

The Forrest Gump star stated that Ephron was always involved with projects that were interesting and offered him sage wisdom regarding acting and show business.

Ephron was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in 2006 and, in her final book I Remember Nothing, she left clues to her readers that she may be ill when she listed at the end of the book "things I won't miss".

Meg Ryan, Hanks' co-star in two of Ephron's most popular films, Sleepless In Seattle and You've Got Mail, was in attendance during the play's opening night alongside other industry notables Barbara Walters, Sting and Lorne Michaels.

"I feel like there's a wonderful spirit in this room," Ryan told the New York Post.

Because she had kept her illness secret from most people she knew, there was a great deal of shock from the likes of Meryl Streep, Matthew Broderick, Billy Crystal Ryan and Hanks, amongst others, when she passed away in 2012.