The American screenwriter and director, born Robert Bertram Schwartz, was widely considered one of the greatest writers in Hollywood.
ADVERTISEMENTRobert Towne, who's career spanned some of the biggest classics of the New Hollywood era of filmmaking, has died at the age of 89.
His publicist Carri McClure says he died on Monday surrounded by family at his home in Los Angeles. No cause of death has yet been revealed.
Roger Corman, the independent filmmaker who was known as the “Spiritual Godfather of the New Hollywood” took Towne under his wing after he took Corman’s acting class, along with other future greats like Jack Nicholson.
Towne wrote films for Corman before becoming a script doctor. Warren Beatty had Towne restructure the script for 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde, as well as writing an uncredited scene for Francis Ford Coppola’sThe Godfather.
Despite not being on the official credit role, in his Oscar acceptance speech, Coppola thanked Towne by name.
This was the moment that thrust Towne into the limelight, which he followed with some of his most celebrated films over the three year span 1973-1975: The Last Detail, Chinatown, and Shampoo.
Chinatown, the Roman Polanski film starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway was nominated for 11 Oscars with Towne winning the film’s only award for Best Original Screenplay.
It’s the film that Towne is best known for and still regarded as a classic of the neo-noir genre today, regardless of the mixed public opinion of its director.
After the success of the 70s, Towne became a director in the 80s, starting with the 1982 film Personal Best. He then wrote the script for Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, however after Personal Best wasn’t a commercial success, he wasn’t able to direct. Increasingly dissatisfied with the production, he changed the credit on the script to his dog’s name, P.H. Vazak.
When Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes was nominated for three Oscars, including one for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, Towne’s dog became the first dog to be nominated for a screenwriting Oscar.
In 1990, Towne’s Chinatown sequel, The Two Jakes was released but didn’t follow up on the critical and commercial success of the original. While that was a disappointment for the writer, he found critical success the same year with Days of Thunder, his first collaboration with Tom Cruise.
Towne would then writer Cruise’s film The Firm, the first two Mission: Impossible films and Cruise co-produced his third film as a director, Without Limits. In 2006, he directed his final film Ask the Dust.
Towne’s first marriage was to actress Julia Payne in 1977. Their daughter Katherine was born in 1978 before their divorce in 1982. In 1984, he married Luisa Gaule with whom he had a daughter, Chiara.
