Oscar-winning ‘Chinatown’ writer was 89

Robert Towne, the screenwriting legend best known for penning the Oscar-winning neo-noir Chinatown, died Monday at 89.

His publicist, Carri McClure, confirmed the news to Entertainment Weekly and said Towne died peacefully at his home in Los Angeles.

After gaining notice as a script doctor and consultant on major films, including The Godfather and Bonnie and Clyde, Towne firmly established himself as a member of the New Hollywood elite with his screenplay for Chinatown. The 1974 film, which stars Jack Nicholson as private detective Jake Gittes, won Towne an Oscar and is still widely considered one of the best screenplays and best films about Los Angeles ever made.

Towne had previously collaborated with Nicholson, a close friend, on 1973’s The Last Detail. As a writer, he often liked to partner with actors and work closely with them to develop scripts for their tastes. After his contributions to Bonnie and Clyde, Towne struck up a friendship with Warren Beatty. He wrote the scripts for Beatty classic Shampoo, as well as Beatty’s 1994 remake of Love Affair. Additionally, he worked as a script doctor on Heaven Can Wait.

Towne also maintained a close bond with Tom Cruise after writing the script for 1990’s Days of Thunder. Towne went on to work on the script for The Firm, as well as to write the first Mission: Impossible film and co-write the second entry in the franchise.

Towne eventually transitioned to directing his own work, originally intending to direct the sequel to Chinatown, The Two Jakes, though Nicholson ultimately helmed the project. Towne pulled double duty as writer and director on Personal Best, Tequila Sunrise, Without Limits, and Ask the Dust.

Robert Bertram Schwartz was born Nov. 23, 1934, in San Pedro, Calif., home to the Port of Los Angeles. Towne was always enamored with L.A. and its history, and his father worked as a clothing store owner and later a property developer.

Initially, Towne had aspirations to act, and after completing his college degree at Pomona College in Claremont, he went on to study with renowned acting teacher Jeff Corey. His classmates included Nicholson and Roger Corman.

Corman, credited with giving many members of a new generation of Hollywood their starts, recruited Towne to write the screenplays for 1961’s Creature from the Haunted Sea and 1960’s Last Woman on Earth, in which Towne also starred.

Towne found work writing for television on shows such as The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Lloyd Bridges Show, and The Outer Limits. It was his screenplay for 1967’s A Time for Killing, which he removed his name from, that brought him to the attention of Beatty and a job refining the script for Bonnie and Clyde.

He worked uncredited on the scripts for Drive, He Said; Cisco Pike; and The New Centurions. Francis Ford Coppola believed Towne’s contributions to The Godfather so essential that he thanked Towne in his Oscar acceptance speech for Best Screenplay.

Towne’s peak came in the mid-1970s with the trio of Chinatown, Shampoo, and The Last Detail. He was Oscar-nominated for all three films, though he only won for Chinatown. Sam Wasson’s book about the making of the film, The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood, claims that Towne secretly worked with college friend and uncredited writing partner Edward Taylor for more than 40 years.

Towne and Nicholson always intended for Chinatown to be part of a trilogy, moving through decades of Los Angeles history. They finally made a second film with 1990’s The Two Jakes, but the disappointing experience nixed any plans for a third (though Towne was reportedly working on a prequel series with David Fincher at one time).

In his later years, Towne predominantly worked as a script doctor, besides bringing his passion project, an adaptation of John Fante’s 1930s Los Angeles novel Ask the Dust, to the screen in 2006.

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Towne also returned to television, most notably serving as a consulting producer on Mad Men.

He was married to actress Julia Payne from 1977 to 1982, after dating for nearly 10 years prior. Payne died in 2019, but the two are survived by their daughter, actress Katharine Towne. Robert Towne is also survived by his daughter Chiara, whom he shared with his second wife, Luisa Gaule.