Author-director Robert Towne, an Oscar winner for his authentic script for “Chinatown” and an acknowledged grasp of the artwork of screenwriting, has died. He was 89.
Towne died Monday at his dwelling in Los Angeles, publicist Carrie McClure mentioned in an announcement.
Throughout a protracted profession that started within the Nineteen Sixties, when he went to work as an actor and author for B-movie director Roger Corman, Towne grew to become probably the most sought-after script medical doctors in film historical past, known as on again and again to unravel structural issues and create nice moments for different individuals’s movies.
Towne got here to prominence within the Nineteen Seventies with three essential and industrial hits launched inside a 14-month interval: “The Final Element” (1973), “Chinatown” (1974) and “Shampoo” (1975). All three screenplays had been Oscar- nominated, with “Chinatown” profitable in its 12 months.
Employed as a “particular guide” by Warren Beatty for 1967’s “Bonnie and Clyde,” Towne restructured the image to dramatize the outlaws’ impending doom. He additionally turned an inert household reunion scene with Beatty and Faye Dunaway into one of many image’s emotional excessive factors. Clyde’s charming bravado falls flat when Bonnie’s mom responds, “You attempt to dwell three miles from me and also you gained’t dwell lengthy, honey.”
Director Arthur Penn was delighted with Towne’s work. “It helped Warren play the scene, and it definitely helped Faye and the mom,” Penn mentioned.
Although most of Towne’s script doctoring went uncredited — for instance, in “The Parallax View” (1974), “Marathon Man” (1976), “The Missouri Breaks” (1976) and “Heaven Can Wait” (1978) — he obtained a uncommon honor in 1973 when “The Godfather” director Francis Ford Coppola thanked him in his Oscar acceptance speech for scripting the touching and pivotal Pacino-Brando backyard scene — a scene not in Mario Puzo’s e-book.
But it surely was Towne’s work on “Bonnie and Clyde” that gave him a shot at “The Final Element,” tailored from a Darryl Ponicsan novel about two Navy “lifers” escorting a younger man accused of petty theft to jail. Written for Jack Nicholson, Towne’s expletive-filled script captured sailors as they actually spoke. When Columbia execs balked, Nicholson defended him.
Towne additionally gave a pessimistic twist to the novel’s extra upbeat ending: Within the movie, the Navy escorts don’t defy authority and let the younger man escape. “All people hides behind doing a job,” Towne mentioned, “whether or not it’s massacring in My Lai or taking a child to jail.”
Satirically, Towne battled with Roman Polanski over the director’s darkish finale to “Chinatown,” a noir detective story portraying the corruption behind the forming of modern-day Los Angeles. In Polanski’s ending, the Dunaway character is killed. Years later, Towne mentioned: “I felt it was too melodramatic to finish it his manner, however I used to be unsuitable, and he was proper.”
The movie, additionally written for Nicholson, secured the actor’s place within the pantheon of nice film stars.
Most of “Chinatown’s” places had been chosen by Towne, who grew up across the port metropolis of San Pedro. “It was a complete melting pot,” Towne recalled. “I used to be the one Jew on the block.”
Towne was born Robert Bertram Schwartz on Nov. 23, 1934. His father, Lou, who ran a girls clothes retailer known as the Towne Sensible Store, modified the household identify. Towne wrote for most of the main stars of his day, together with Nicholson, Beatty, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise. He did uncredited work for Polanski on the Ford automobile “Frantic” (1988). For Cruise, he did “Days of Thunder” (1990), “The Agency” (1993), “Mission: Unattainable” (1996) and “Mission: Unattainable II” (2000).
For Beatty he contributed a key line of dialogue for the romantic reunion scene within the actor-director’s “Reds.” He shared the writing credit score with Beatty on “Shampoo.” The primary draft was Towne’s and it was he who got here up with the important thing notion of creating Beatty’s womanizing character a hairdresser. He attributed his extraordinary potential to jot down for stars to having ear. “I realized to take heed to different actors’ cadences,” he mentioned, including that every had his personal distinctive speech patterns.
Towne started as an actor for Corman in 1960’s “The Final Girl on Earth,” which he additionally wrote. One other writing spotlight from his years with Corman was 1964’s “The Tomb of Ligeia,” based mostly on the Poe story.
In 1964, Towne wrote “The Dove Affair” episode of “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” Between 1962 and 1964, he wrote for “The Lloyd Bridges Present” and “The Richard Boone Present.” He additionally wrote “The Chameleon” episode of “The Outer Limits” that starred Robert Duvall.
Towne continued to seem onscreen sometimes, essaying his most critical position within the Nicholson-helmed 1972 drama “Drive, He Stated,” through which he performed the favourite instructor of Nicholson’s character.
Towne’s directing efforts had been typically praised however fared much less effectively on the field workplace than the movies he penned. Pauline Kael known as “Private Greatest,” his 1982 directorial debut about Olympic hopefuls, “a really sensible and super-subtle film, through which the authenticity of the small print attracts us in.”
Different writer-director efforts embrace 1988’s “Tequila Dawn,” starring Gibson, Kurt Russell and Michelle Pfeiffer. The movie opened to blended evaluations and modest field workplace success. “With out Limits,” produced by Cruise in 1998, starred Billy Crudup as legendary runner Steve Prefontaine. Leonard Maltin’s film information lauded it as “a barely launched sleeper.”
In 2006, Towne tailored and directed John Fante’s novel “Ask the Mud.” A romantic interval piece set within the Bunker Hill part of Los Angeles, “Mud” starred Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek however failed on the field workplace.
Towne’s returned to “Chinatown” with the long-gestating sequel “The Two Jakes,” on which he was in the end changed by Nicholson as director. The movie failed each critically and on the field workplace. He additionally endured different self-inflicted travails round that point, together with a expensive divorce and studio battles over “Private Greatest.” He was compelled to promote the rights to his script for 1984’s “Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes” to Warner Bros. “That was as insufferable as an expert loss ever will get,” Towne mentioned in a 1988 interview. “It was going to be the one nice film I’d completed in my life.” Towne gave his canine, P.H. Vazak, display screen credit score. It was the primary canine ever nominated in the most effective tailored screenplay Oscar class.
However Towne had already completed the good film in his life. “Chinatown” is commonly cited as top-of-the-line movies ever made and was chosen for preservation by the Library of Congress in 1991.
Towne mentioned a extremely good screenplay “reads prefer it’s describing a film already made.” Reflecting on his recurring occupation as a script physician, Towne mentioned he discovered it revitalizing. “You be taught issues from different individuals,” he mentioned. “All scripts are rewritten. The one query is whether or not it’s rewritten effectively or badly. On the entire, it’s higher to have a repute for fixing issues.”
In 2013, Towne served as a consulting producer on the ultimate season of AMC’s esteemed sequence “Mad Males.” In 2006, Towne was the topic of artist Sarah Morris’ movie “Robert Towne.”
Previous to his loss of life, Towne had collaborated with David Fincher on a “Chinatown” prequel sequence for Netflix, which might discover the police days of Jack Nicholson’s character Jake Gittes. In an interview with Selection one month earlier than his loss of life, Towne confirmed that each one episodes of the mission had been written.
Towne obtained an honorary Doctorate of High quality Arts levels from the American Movie Institute in June 2014. He’s survived by two daughters: Katherine, from his marriage to Julie Payne, and Chiara, from a second marriage to Luisa Gaule.
