Robert Towne, Oscar-Winning ‘Chinatown’ Screenwriter, Dies at 89

Robert Towne,the screenwriter as superstar whose Oscar-winning work on the 1974 classicChinatownis widely recognized as the gold standard for movie scripts, has died. He was 89.

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

He also received Academy Award nominations forThe Last Detail(1973) andShampoo(1975) in the years surrounding his most famous work.

His takes on Los Angeles were etched with melancholy and painted the city as one of beauty and sadness. InChinatownandShampoo,gumshoe J.J.Gittes(Jack Nicholson) and Beverly Hills hairdresser GeorgeRoundy(Warren Beatty) end up alone. (Towne collaborated often with those actors.)

This squinty vantage on Southern California, as a temptress who dashes hopes, also was evident in his script forTequila Sunrise(1988), which starredMel Gibsonas a retired drug dealer, Kurt Russell as a cop andMichelle Pfeifferas the femme fatale.

Towne also was highly regarded for his work as a script doctor, contributing the MarlonBrandogarden scene toThe Godfather(1972) and supplying crucial pieces to other films like Arthur Penn’sBonnie and Clyde(1967).

WhenGodfatherdirector Francis FordCoppolaaccepted the Oscar for best screenplay (co-written with MarioPuzo), he thanked Towne from the stage. The writer had been prominently credited as a “special consultant” onBonnie and Clydeafter Beatty, the star and producer on that film, came to him for help.

Towne again collaborated with Beatty onLove Affair(1994), a remake of the classic 1932 Irene Dunne-Charles Boyer movie.

Towne was renowned for his ability to construct ornate but compact screenplays and write pungentdialoguethat conveyed rich, and, at times, complex, contradictory meanings.

“He knows how to use sly indirection, canny repetition, unexpected counterpoint and a unique poetic vulgarity to stretch a scene or an entire script to its utmost emotional capacity,” film critic MichaelSragowwrote in 1998. “He’s also a lush visual artist with an eye for the kind of images that go to the left and right sides of the brain simultaneously.”

Chinatownwas his masterpiece, with the classic noir detective story showing up on numerous critics’ “best” lists. Fashioned around the story of the Mulholland family and fights over L.A. water rights, the Raymond Chandler-inspired film also starred FayeDunawayand John Huston and was directed by RomanPolanski.The film received 11 Oscarnoms,but only Towne won.

(Towne talked about writing “a leading man part for Nicholson” in Sam Wasson’s bookThe Big Goodbye,whichTHRexcerptedin 2020. The book also notes that Edward Taylor, a former college roommate and frequent collaborator of Towne’s, did a great deal of work on the screenplay without credit.)

HisChinatownfollow-up,The Two Jakes(1990), this time directed by Nicholson, also was based onGittesinvestigations, but critics found his screenplay lackluster, and the much-anticipated sequel was a bitter disappointment. (In November 2019, it was revealed that Towne and David Fincher were at work on aprequel seriesfor Netflix.)

Towne also wrote theTom CruisevehiclesThe Firm(1993) andDays of Thunder(1990) and was credited with the first twoMission: Impossibleblockbusters, released in 1996 and 2000.

He removed his name from the credits ofGreystoke:The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes(1984) and substituted the nom de plume P.H.Vazak.The nonexistent writer then shared an Oscar nomination — the fourth of Towne’s career— with Michael Austin.Vazak,it turns out, was the name of Towne’s sheepdog.

Following his more prolific years, Towne was troubled by mysterious illnesses that dissipated his energy to craft original screenplays, confining him to rewrites. “I was like a guy whose arm is only good enough to pitch a few innings. I could not sustain,” he said in 1992.

In fact, some of his best work was done on other’s screenplays — likeTheYakuza(1974) and8 Million Ways to Die(1986), which featured screenplays by PaulSchraderand Oliver Stone, respectively — or on abandoned projects.

Towne also added scenes to Nicholson’sDrive, He Said(1971) and did uncredited polishes toThe New CenturionsandCisco Pike,both released in 1972. He also assisted onMarathon Manand the Nicholson-starringThe Missouri Breaks,a pair of 1976 movies.

Tequila Sunrisemarked his second project as writer-director, followingPersonal Best(1982), the story of a lesbian track athlete starringMarielHemingway. He also did double duty on the StevePrefontainebiopicWithout Limits(1998) andAsk the Dust(2006), another L.A. piece set in the1930s.

In 2017,Vultureplaced him No. 3 on its list of the 100 Best Screenwriters of All Time; only Billy Wilder and Joel & Ethan Coen ranked higher.

Robert Bertram Schwartz was born on Nov. 23, 1934, in San Pedro, home of the Port of Los Angeles. His father owned a ladies clothing store called the Towne Smart Shop in the neighborhood and then became a real estate developer, and the family moved to tony RanchoPalosVerdes.

Towne attended Chadwick Prep School, Redondo Union High and Pomona College, where he studied English literature and philosophy and graduated in 1956. He (along with college pal Richard Chamberlain) studied acting with blacklisted actor Jeff Corey, and it was here that he met Nicholson. The two established an instant rapport.

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

Towne also starred under the pseudonym Edward Wain in that film and played a secret agent in another Corman flick,Creature From the Haunted Sea(1961). He then cranked out the script for the director’sThe Tomb of Ligeia(1964), starring Vincent Price in an Edgar Allan Poe tale.

When Beatty needed help on the script forBonnie and Clyde,he turned to Towne. The writer then rejected an opportunity to adaptThe Great Gatsby,opting to complete his work onChinatown.He came up with the idea for the story while he was working with Nicholson onThe Last Detail,herecalledin a 2009 interview.

“I went to Jack and said, ‘What if I wrote a detective story set in L.A. of the ’30s?’ He said, ‘Great,'” Towne recalled. “The one feeling I had was a desire to try and re-create the city.

“I then had to go to Oregon where Jack was filmingDrive, He Said.I hadn’t really read Raymond Chandler at that point, so I started reading Chandler. While I was there at the University of Oregon, I checked out a book from the library [written by Carey McWilliams] calledSouthern California Country: Island on the Land.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?’ Instead of a jewel-encrusted falcon, make it something as prevalent as water faucets and make a conspiracy out of that. 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. So that was really the beginning of it.”

Survivors include his second wife, Luisa, whom he married in 1984; his daughters, Kathleen, an actress, and Chiara; his brother, Roger (a co-writer onThe Natural), and sister-in-law, Sylviane; niece Jocelyn; and nephew Nick. His first wife was Julie Payne, daughter of actors John Payne and Anne Shirley.

Information regarding a celebration of life will be announced.