Robert Towne, Oscar-winning writer of ‘Chinatown,’ dead at 89
Legendary Hollywood screenwriter Robert Towne, best known for writing the Oscar-winning “Chinatown” and other critically acclaimed classics, died at the age of 89 on Monday in his native Los Angeles.
Towne rose to a level of fame in the 1960s and 1970s that was comparable with some of the great directors and stars he frequently worked with, including longtime friends Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty and, later, Tom Cruise.
He wrote or co-wrote some of the most iconic films of the era — including ���Shampoo” and “The Last Detail” — at a time when artists had significant levels of creative control over filmmaking.
Towne’s films managed to paint a highly personal — and jaded — vision of his hometown of Los Angeles onto the screen that still endures to this day.
“It’s a city that’s so illusory,” Towne said in a 2006 interview. “It’s the westernmost west of America. It’s a sort of place of last resort. It’s a place where, in a word, people go to make their dreams come true. And they’re forever disappointed.”
Towne won an Academy Award for the neo-noir mystery “Chinatown” and was nominated three other times: for “The Last Detail,” “Shampoo” and “Greystroke.”
In 1997, he received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Writers Guild of America.
“His life, like the characters he created, was incisive, iconoclastic and entirely (original),” “Shampoo” actor Lee Grant wrote on X.
Recognizable by his large forehead and full beard, Towne began his career working on hit TV shows such as “The Man from U.N.C.L.E” and “The Lloyd Bridges Show” as well as on several low-budget movies with producer Roger Corman.
Through their shared psychiatrist, Towne met Beatty, who gave him his big break in the biz working as a script editor for his 1967 film “Bonnie and Clyde.”
Towne did not receive any credits for his work on the Robert Benton-David Newman script.
He became a sought-after ghostwriter in Hollywood, helping out on “The Godfather,” “The Parallax View” and “Heaven Can Wait” among others.
He referred to himself as a “relief pitcher who could come in for an inning, not pitch the whole game.”
He finally earned credits with Nicholson — his former roommate — in “The Last Detail” and Beatty’s “Shampoo.”
Towne became Hollywood royalty, however, for screenwriting Roman Polanski’s enigmatic 1974 thriller “Chinatown,” set in LA during the Great Depression and starring Nicholson as private detective Jake Gittes.
While Gittes unravels a web of corruption involving his client’s husband, he experiences the insidious side of old Los Angeles in classic film noir style creating a timeless detective movie.
The twists and turns of the mystery culminate in one of the most repeated lines in Hollywood history when Gittes’ partner Lawrence Walsh (Joe Mantell) sums up his despair: “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.”
The “Chinatown” script has been taught in nearly every “film writing 101” class since its release. He recalled fiercely arguing with Polanski over the movie’s devastating ending — an ending Polanski pushed for and Towne later agreed was the right choice.
Towne wrote the movie after turning down a chance to adapt F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.” The movie was partly inspired by the 1946 book “Southern California: An Island on the Land” by journalist Carey McWilliams.
“In it was a chapter called ‘Water, water, water,’ which was a revelation to me. And I thought ‘Why not do a picture about a crime that’s right out in front of everybody,‘” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2009.
“Instead of a jewel-encrusted falcon, make it something as prevalent as water faucets, and make a conspiracy out of that,” he continued. And after reading about what they were doing, dumping water and starving the farmers out of their land, I realized the visual and dramatic possibilities were enormous.”
Author Sam Wasson, whose 2020 book “The Big Goodbye” is entirely dedicated to the making of the movie, claimed that Towne was helped out extensively by his college roommate Edward Taylor, who was not credited for his writing role.
According to “The Big Goodbye,” for which Towne declined to be interviewed, Taylor did not ask for credit on the film because his “friendship with Robert” mattered more.
Wasson also wrote that the movie’s famous closing line originated with a vice cop who had told Towne that crimes in LA’s Chinatown were rarely prosecuted.
“Robert Towne once said that Chinatown is a state of mind,” Wasson wrote. “Not just a place on the map in Los Angeles, but a condition of total awareness almost indistinguishable from blindness. Dreaming you’re in paradise and waking up in the dark — that’s Chinatown. Thinking you’ve got it figured out and realizing you’re dead — that’s Chinatown.”
Towne’s prestige waned in the late 70s as studios took greater control and he began directing movies, including “Personal Best” and “Tequila Sunrise” which were met with lukewarm reviews.
Chinatown’s highly anticipated sequel, “The Two Jakes,” was released in 1990 but was a box office and critical flop.
Towne began working with Tom Cruise around the same time, on Don Simpson-Jerry Bruckheimer production “Days of Thunder” in 1990 in which Cruise starred as a race car driver.
Towne later worked with him on “The Firm” and the first two “Mission: Impossible” movies.
His most recent film was “Ask the Dust,” a story he wrote and directed that came out in 2006, based on John Fonte classic Los Angeles novel.
Towne was married twice, the second time to Luisa Gaule, and had two children. His brother, Roger Towne, also wrote screenplays, his credits including “The Natural.”
He died surrounded by his family, his publicist said.
Towne was born Robert Bertram Schwartz in Los Angeles and moved to San Pedro after his father’s business, a dress shop, closed down because of the Great Depression. His father changed the family name to Towne.
He had a lifelong passion for writing from a young age and said he was drawn to screenwriting by the proximity of the Warner Bros. Theater.
With Post wires
