R.I.P. Robert Towne, Oscar-winning screenwriter of Chinatown
Towne was among the most renowned and influential screenwriters of '70s New Hollywood. He was 89 years old.
Photo: George Rose
Robert Towne has died. A prolific screenwriter and occasional director known for the realistic melodramas and sophisticated neo-noirs that were a hallmark of New Hollywood, Towne’s filmography reads like an essential viewing list for 1970s cinema, and that doesn’t even include his extensive script-doctoring and consulting work on such totemic films as The Godfather and Bonnie And Clyde. Simply put, vast swaths of the ’70s Hollywood canon would not exist without the contributions of Robert Towne. Per Variety, his publicist confirmed that he died on Monday at his Los Angeles home. He was 89.
Born in Los Angeles on November 23, 1934, and raised in San Pedro, Towne began his career, like many of his generation, working for Roger Corman. His first screenplay, 1960’s Last Woman On Earth, produced and directed by Corman and starring Towne, began a run of work that didn’t start to slow until the new millennium. Following Last Woman, he wrote for television, racking up credits on The Lloyd Bridges Show, The Outer Limits, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Within Corman’s crew, Towne was surrounded by some of the most creative rising stars in town, including Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, and Roman Polanski. How else would Towne’s script for a Corman-directed Western called A Time For Killing get to Warren Beatty? Beatty continued to bolster Towne’s career over the years, including when Beatty hired Towne to do uncredited rewrites on Bonnie And Clyde even though Towne hated the script, which earned him a reputation around town as an ace script doctor.
Though Bonnie And Clyde made his name, he continued to do uncredited work in its wake. When Francis Ford Coppola picked up an Oscar for The Godfather, he thanked “Bob Towne, who wrote the very beautiful scene between Marlon [Brando] and Al Pacino in the garden.” That might’ve been the push Towne needed because afterward, he scored a hat trick of nominations and mainstream success. 1973’s The Last Detail, 1974’s Chinatown, and 1975’s Shampoo all received nominations, with Chinatown being the only winner. Even better: Those movies actually carried his name.
After Chinatown, Towne returned to script doctoring, getting uncredited work on Marathon Man, Heaven Can Wait, Reds, and Swing Shift. Following the troubled production of his directorial debut, Personal Best, a sports biopic starring Mariel Hemingway, Towne was forced to sell the rights to his passion project, the script for his Tarzan movie, Greystroke: The Legend Of Tarzan, Lord Of The Apes. For Greystroke, Towne hoped to bring the same realism to Tarzan as Chinatown, extensively researching African apes in hopes of crafting a Tarzan movie from their perspective. Ultimately, the film was made without him, but his script was nominated for an Oscar. As usual, Towne’s name isn’t on the script. Instead, it’s credited to P.H. Vazak, Towne’s dog. He called the project “the biggest creative regret of my life.”
The ’80s were hard on Towne. His two directorial projects, Personal Best and Tequilla Sunrise, flopped, so he returned to a project he’d been working on for years: The continued adventures of J.J. Gittes. Chinatown was initially conceived as a trilogy, with Towne following Gittes into the ’40s and ’50s. In 1985, Towne began work on the first sequel, The Two Jakes, which he was initially going to direct. This began five years of starts and stops for the project, which kept going over budget due to conflicts between Towne and producer Robert Evans, who was going to star as the antagonist, and the studio. Eventually, Paramount lost faith in the project and nearly sold it, but Jack Nicholson ultimately stepped in to direct the picture. Released in 1990, the film was not a box office success but has grown in esteem over the years. In 2019, Towne reportedly worked on a Chinatown prequel series with David Fincher.
After the Two Jakes debacle, Towne slowed his output considerably as he returned to critical and box office success. He began working with Tom Cruise, penning the scripts for his films Days Of Thunder, The Firm, and the first two Mission: Impossible movies. He also directed Without Limits, a biopic about distance runner Steve Prefontaine, which Cruise produced. Towne helmed one more film in his career, 2006’s Ask The Dust, but before more or less retiring, Towne returned to television as, what else, a consultant for Mad Men.
Towne was married twice and divorced once. He is survived by his two daughters.