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Screenwriter and director Robert Towne, an Oscar winner for his original screenplay for “Chinatown” and a recognized master of the art of screenwriting, has died. He was 89.
Towne died Monday at his home in Los Angeles, his publicist Carrie McClure said in a statement.
Over a long career that began in the 1960s, when he began working as an actor and screenwriter for B-movie director Roger Corman, Towne became one of the most sought-after script doctors in film history, called upon time and again to solve structural problems and create big moments for other people’s films.
Towne rose to prominence in the 1970s with three critical and commercial successes released in a 14-month period: “The Last Detail” (1973), “Chinatown” (1974) and “Shampoo” (1975). All three screenplays were nominated for Academy Awards, with “Chinatown” winning the award for screenplay of the year.
Hired as a “special consultant” by Warren Beatty for “Bonnie and Clyde” in 1967, Towne restructured the film to dramatize the outlaws’ impending demise. He also turned a lifeless family reunion scene with Beatty and Faye Dunaway into one of the film’s highlights. Clyde’s charming bravado falls flat when Bonnie’s mother replies, “If you try to live three miles from me, you won’t live long, honey.”
Director Arthur Penn was pleased with Towne’s work. “It helped Warren play the scene, and it certainly helped Faye and the mother,” Penn said.
Although most of Towne’s scripts are uncredited — for example, in “The Parallax View” (1974), “Marathon Man” (1976), “The Missouri Breaks” (1976) and “Heaven Can Wait” (1978) — he received a rare honor in 1973 when “The Godfather” director Francis Ford Coppola thanked him in his Oscar acceptance speech for writing the screenplay for the touching and pivotal garden scene between Pacino and Brando — a scene not included in Mario Puzo’s book.
But it was Towne’s work on “Bonnie and Clyde” that gave him the opportunity to direct “The Last Detail,” adapted from a Darryl Ponicsan novel about two Navy “lifers” who escort a young man accused of petty theft to prison. Written for Jack Nicholson, Towne’s expletive-filled script captured the sailors as they actually talked. When Columbia executives balked, Nicholson championed it.
Towne also put a pessimistic spin on the novel’s more optimistic ending: In the film, the Navy escorts do not defy authority and let the young man escape. “Everybody hides behind a job,” Towne said, “whether it’s slaughtering at My Lai or taking a child to prison.”
Ironically, Towne had a beef with Roman Polanski over the dark ending of Chinatown, a noir crime novel that depicts the corruption that led to the formation of modern Los Angeles. In Polanski’s ending, Dunaway’s character is killed off. Towne said years later, “I thought it was too melodramatic to end the way he wanted, but I was wrong, and he was right.”
The film, also written for Nicholson, secured the actor a place in the pantheon of great movie stars.
Most of the Chinatown locations were chosen by Towne, who grew up around the port city of San Pedro. “It was a melting pot,” Towne recalls. “I was the only Jewish person in the neighborhood.”
Towne was born Robert Bertram Schwartz on November 23, 1934. His father, Lou, who ran a women’s clothing store called Towne Smart Shop, changed the family name. Towne wrote for many stars of his day, including Nicholson, Beatty, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise. He worked for Polanski on Ford’s film “Frantic” (1988). For Cruise, he did “Days of Thunder” (1990), “The Firm” (1993), “Mission Impossible” (1996) and “Mission Impossible II” (2000).
For Beatty, he helped write a key line for the reunion scene in the director-actor’s “Reds.” He also wrote with Beatty for “Shampoo.” The first draft was Towne’s, and he had the key idea of making Beatty’s womanizing character a hairdresser. He credited his extraordinary ability to write for stars to his keen ear. “I learned to listen to the cadences of other actors,” he said, adding that each had his own speech patterns.
Towne made his acting debut for Corman in “The Last Woman on Earth” in 1960, which he also wrote. Another highlight of his writing years with Corman was “The Tomb of Ligeia” in 1964, based on the Poe tale.
In 1964, Towne wrote the episode “The Dove Affair” of “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” Between 1962 and 1964, he wrote for “The Lloyd Bridges Show” and “The Richard Boone Show.” He also wrote the episode “The Chameleon” of “The Outer Limits” starring Robert Duvall.
Towne continued to appear occasionally on screen, playing his most serious role in the 1972 Nicholson-directed drama Drive, He Said, in which he played Nicholson’s character’s favorite teacher.
Towne’s efforts as a director have often been praised, but have been less successful at the box office than the films he has written. Pauline Kael said that “Personal Best,” his 1982 debut about Olympic hopefuls, was “a very intelligent and very subtle film, in which the authenticity of the details captivates us.”
Other Tom Cruise films include “Tequila Sunrise” (1988), starring Gibson, Kurt Russell and Michelle Pfeiffer. The film received mixed reviews and was a modest box office success. “Without Limits,” produced by Tom Cruise in 1998, starred Billy Crudup as legendary racer Steve Prefontaine. Leonard Maltin’s film guide hailed it as “a barely released film.”
In 2006, Towne adapted and directed John Fante’s novel “Ask the Dust.” The period romance film set in the Bunker Hill neighborhood of Los Angeles, starring Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek, failed at the box office.
Towne returned to Chinatown with the long-dreamed-of sequel, The Two Jakes, which he eventually replaced as director by Nicholson. The film was a critical and box-office failure. He also endured other self-inflicted trials during this time, including an expensive divorce and studio battles over “Personal Best.” He was forced to sell the rights to his screenplay for 1984’s “Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes” to Warner Bros. “It was as unbearable as a professional loss can be,” Towne said in a 1988 interview. “It was the only great movie I’d ever made.” Towne credited his dog, P. H. Vazak, onscreen. He was the first dog to be nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards.
But Towne had already made the best film of his life. “Chinatown” is often cited as one of the greatest films ever made and was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress in 1991.
A great script, Towne says, “reads like it’s describing a movie that’s already been made.” Reflecting on his recurring job as a script doctor, Towne said he finds it invigorating. “You learn from other people,” he said. “All scripts get rewritten. The only question is whether they’re good or bad rewritten. Overall, it’s better to have a reputation for fixing things.”
In 2013, Towne served as a consulting producer on the final season of AMC’s hit series “Mad Men.” In 2006, Towne was the subject of artist Sarah Morris’ film “Robert Towne.”
Before his death, Towne had collaborated with David Fincher on a “Chinatown” prequel series for Netflix, which would explore the cop days of Jack Nicholson’s character Jake Gittes. In an interview with Variety A month before his death, Towne confirmed that all episodes of the project had been written.
Towne received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the American Film Institute in June 2014. He is survived by two daughters: Katherine, from his marriage to Julie Payne, and Chiara, from a second marriage to Luisa Gaule.