'Chinatown' and 'Shampoo' Screenwriter Was 89

Robert Towne, the superstar screenwriter whose Oscar-winning work on the 1974 classic Chinese district widely recognized as the gold standard for film scripts, has died at the age of 89.

Towne died Monday at his home in Los Angeles, his publicist Carri McClure said.

He also received Oscar nominations for The last detail (1973) and Shampoo (1975) in the years surrounding his most famous work.

His shots of Los Angeles were imbued with melancholy, depicting the city as one of beauty and sadness. Chinese district And ShampooDetective JJ Given (Jack Nicholson) and Beverly Hills hairdresser George Round (Warren Beatty) ends up alone. (Towne often collaborated with these actors.)

This sleazy view of Southern California as a temptress who dashes hopes was also evident in his script for Tequila Sunrise (1988), starring Mel Gibson as a retired drug dealer, Kurt Russell as a cop and Michelle Pfeiffer as a femme fatale.

Towne was also highly regarded for his work as a script doctor, contributing to the Marlon Brando garden scene at The Godfather (1972) and providing crucial pieces to other films such as Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde (1967).

When Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola received the Oscar for Best Screenplay (co-written with Mario Puzo), he thanked Towne from the stage. The writer had been widely credited as a “special consultant” on Bonnie and Clyde after Beatty, the star and producer of the film, came to him for help.

Towne collaborated with Beatty again on Love story (1994), a remake of the classic 1932 film starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer.

Towne was renowned for his ability to construct ornate but compact scripts and write punchy lyrics. dialogue which conveyed rich and sometimes complex and contradictory meanings.

“He knows how to use clever detours, clever repetitions, unexpected counterpoints and a unique poetic vulgarity to stretch a scene or an entire script to its maximum emotional capacity,” said film critic Michael Sragow “He is also a talented visual artist, with an eye for the kind of images that go to both the left and right sides of the brain simultaneously,” Dr. Stevens wrote in 1998.

Chinese district was his masterpiece, with the classic noir crime novel appearing on many critics' “best of” lists. Built around the story of the Mulholland family and the conflicts over water rights in Los Angeles, the Raymond Chandler-inspired film also starred Faye Dunaway and John Huston and was directed by Roman PolanskiThe film received 11 Oscars. namesbut only Towne won.

(Towne spoke of writing “a lead role for Nicholson” in Sam Wasson's book The big goodbyewhich THR excerpted in 2020. The book also notes that Edward Taylor, a former college roommate and frequent collaborator of Towne's, did much uncredited work on the screenplay.)

Her Chinese district follow up, The Two Jakes (1990), this time directed by Nicholson, was also based on Given investigations, but critics found its script lackluster, and the highly anticipated sequel was a bitter disappointment. (In November 2019, it was revealed that Towne and David Fincher were working on a prequel series for Netflix.)

Towne also wrote Tom Cruise's vehicles The company (1993) and Days of thunder (1990) and was credited with the first two Impossible mission blockbusters, released in 1996 and 2000.

He removed his name from the credits of Greystoke:The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) and replaced the pen name PH They are strongThe nonexistent writer went on to share an Oscar nomination – the fourth of Towne's career – with Michael Austin. They are strongIt turns out that was the name of Towne's sheepdog.

After his most prolific years, Towne was plagued by mysterious illnesses that sapped his energy for creating original screenplays, limiting him to rewrites. “I was like a guy whose arm is only good enough to throw a few innings. I couldn't hold up,” he said in 1992.

In fact, some of his best work has been done on other people's screenplays, such as THE Yakuza (1974) and 8 million ways to die (1986), which featured screenplays by Paul Schrader and Oliver Stone, respectively — or on abandoned projects.

Towne also added scenes with Nicholson Drive, he said. (1971) and did uncredited polishing at The new centurions And Cisco Pikeboth released in 1972. He also participated in The Marathon Man and the film starring Nicholson Missouri Breaksa pair of films from 1976.

Tequila Sunrise marked his second project as a writer-director, after Personal record (1982), the story of a lesbian track athlete starring Mariel Hemingway. He also doubled up on the Steve Prefontaine biographical film Without limits (1998) and Ask the dust (2006), another Los Angeles play set in the 1930s.

In 2017, Vulture ranked him third on its list of the 100 greatest screenwriters of all time; only Billy Wilder and Joel and Ethan Coen rank higher.

Robert Bertram Schwartz was born on November 23, 1934, in San Pedro, where the Port of Los Angeles is located. His father owned a women's clothing store called Towne Smart Shop in the neighborhood, later became a real estate developer, and the family moved to Tony Rancho Palos Greens.

Towne attended Chadwick Prep School, Redondo Union High, and Pomona College, where he studied English literature and philosophy and graduated in 1956. He studied acting with blacklisted actor Jeff Corey, along with his college friend Richard Chamberlain, and it was there that he met Nicholson. The two formed an immediate relationship.

Like many others, Towne got his start in show business at another institution of higher learning, Roger Corman's “school.” His first screenplay was a post-apocalyptic opus for the director-producer called The Last Woman on Earth (1960).

Towne also starred as Edward Wain in this film and played a secret agent in another Corman film, Haunted Sea Creature (1961). He then wrote the screenplay for the director's film The Tomb of Ligeia (1964), starring Vincent Price in a tale by Edgar Allan Poe.

When Beatty needed help with the script for Bonnie and Clydehe turned to Towne. The writer then rejected an opportunity to adapt Gatsby the magnificentchoosing to finish his work on Chinese districtHe got the idea for the story while working with Nicholson on The last detailhe recalled in a 2009 interview.

“I went to Jack and said, ‘What if I wrote a detective story set in Los Angeles in the 1930s?’ He said, ‘Great,’” Towne recalls. “I wanted to try to recreate the city.”

“I then had to go to Oregon where Jack was filming Drive, he said.. I hadn't really read Raymond Chandler at that point, so I started reading Chandler. While I was at the University of Oregon, I borrowed a book from the library. [written by Carey McWilliams] called Southern California Country: Island on EarthThere was a chapter called “Water, Water, Water,” which was a revelation to me.

“I thought, ‘Why not make a movie about a crime that’s happening in front of everyone?’ Instead of a jewel-encrusted hawk, I should do something as common as water faucets and make it a conspiracy. And after reading about what they were doing, dumping water and starving farmers who were losing their land, I realized the visual and dramatic possibilities were enormous. That’s how it all began.”

He is survived by his second wife, Luisa, whom he married in 1984; his daughters, Kathleen, an actress, and Chiara; his brother, Roger, and sister-in-law, Sylviane; his niece Jocelyn; and his nephew Nick.

Information regarding a celebration of life will be announced.