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In ‘Harry Met Sally’ tribute, NYC deli invites contestants to ‘have what she’s having’

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Barbara Goldberg, Reuters

NEW YORK—It was the moan heard around the world.In the 1989 movie &quot;When Harry Met Sally,&quot; actor Meg Ryan&#x27;s loud rendition of a woman faking an orgasm while seated at a New York deli stands as one of the most memorable moments in film history.Katz&#x27;s, the deli where the scene took place, ran a contest on Friday to mark the 30th anniversary of the movie&#x27;s release, inviting anyone who wants to &quot;have what she&#x27;s having&quot; to sit at the same table in the Lower East Side landmark and imitate Ryan&#x27;s famously feigned frenzy.Popular with New Yorkers since it opened in 1888, the family-run business specializing in enormous corned beef and pastrami sandwiches became an international tourist spot after the film.Competitors in Katz&#x27;s contest, whatever their gender identity, will have to record their performances, post the videos online, and wait for a panel of social media influencers to pick a winner who will be announced next week, the deli said.Among the contenders on Friday was Shauna Mogan, 31, a high school teacher from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who nibbled a pickle and moaned in a mounting crescendo that culminated in screams and drew applause from the crowded restaurant.Mogan, who in the midst of her performance knocked a baseball cap off her friend, Zack Yarborough, 33, said the experience was particularly satisfying because Katz&#x27;s looks the same as it did in the movie 30 years ago.&quot;It&#x27;s such a classic scene - and in a place that still exists!&quot; said Mogan, who said it wasn&#x27;t her first fake orgasm, just the first in public.Unfortunately, the contest excludes the scene&#x27;s most famous line, when another deli customer, a middle-aged woman who watches Ryan&#x27;s table-pounding performance in awe, tells a waiter: &quot;I&#x27;ll have what she&#x27;s having.&quot;The line, delivered by director Rob Reiner’s late mother Estelle Reiner, ranks No.33 in the American Film Institute&#x27;s list of all-time top 100 movie quotations. (The No.1 line was Rhett Butler&#x27;s immortal line from &quot;Gone With The Wind&quot;: &quot;Frankly, my dear, I don&#x27;t give a damn.&quot;)The appeal of Ryan&#x27;s performance is the way her character humbles her over-confident companion Harry, played by Billy Crystal, who insists women had never faked orgasms with him.&quot;It&#x27;s just that all men are sure it never happened to them and most women at one time or another have done it, so you do the math,&quot; Ryan&#x27;s character says.When Harry insists he surely would have been able to tell the difference, she begins fake moaning, building to loud cries of feigned ecstasy.&quot;Meg Ryan was so convincing - like an ego-busting butcher,&quot; Ben Mankiewicz, a host on the Turner Classic Movies television channel, told Reuters in an email. &quot;Men everywhere stopped kidding themselves after experiencing that scene.&quot; (Editing by Bernadette Baum)

"When Harry Met Sally" celebrated 30 years since its release on Friday, and the deli the movie made famous held a contest reliving its most famous scene.

"When Harry Met Sally" celebrated 30 years since its release on Friday, and the deli the movie made famous held a contest reliving its most famous scene.

In ‘Harry Met Sally’ tribute, NYC deli invites contestants to ‘have what she’s having’

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In ‘Harry Met Sally’ tribute, NYC deli invites contestants to ‘have what she’s having’

Barbara Goldberg,

Reuters

Published Jul 13, 2019 04:08 AM PHT

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When Harry Met Sally

Katz's Deli

Katz's Delicatessen

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