Robert Towne, Oscar-winning author of “Chinatown,” dies at age 89

Legendary Hollywood screenwriter Robert Towne, best known as the author of the Oscar-winning film “Chinatown” and other critically acclaimed classics, died on Monday at the age of 89 in his hometown of Los Angeles.

Towne achieved a level of fame in the 1960s and 1970s comparable to that of some of the major directors and stars with whom he frequently worked, including his longtime friends Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty and later Tom Cruise.

He wrote or co-wrote some of the most famous films of the era, including Shampoo and The Last Command, at a time when artists still had a significant amount of creative control over film production.

In his films, Towne managed to bring a very personal – and jaded – image of his hometown of Los Angeles to the screen that still stands today.

“It’s a city that’s so illusory,” Towne said in a 2006 interview. “It’s the westernmost west of America. It’s kind of a last resort. In short, it’s a place where people go to make their dreams come true. And they’re forever disappointed.”

Towne won an Oscar for the neo-noir crime thriller “Chinatown” and was nominated three more times: for “The Last Command,” “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 succinct, iconoclastic and totally (original),” said the “Shampoo” actor Lee Grant wrote on X.

Towne, recognizable by his large forehead and full beard, began his career working on successful television shows such as “The Man from UNCLE” and “The Lloyd Bridges Show” as well as several low-budget films with producer Roger Corman.

Through their mutual psychiatrist, Towne met Beatty, who gave him his big break in the industry when he worked as a screenwriter for his 1967 film “Bonnie and Clyde.”

Towne received no credit for his work on the screenplay by Robert Benton and David Newman.

He became a sought-after ghostwriter in Hollywood and worked on films such as “The Godfather,” “The Witness to a Conspiracy” and “Heaven Can Wait.”

He described himself as a “replacement pitcher who can come in for an inning but doesn’t have to pitch the whole game.”

Finally, he appeared alongside his former roommate Nicholson in “The Last Command” and Beatty’s “Shampoo”.

However, Towne became a Hollywood star through the screenplay for Roman Polanski’s enigmatic 1974 thriller “Chinatown,” which is set in LA during the Great Depression and in which Nicholson played the lead role of private detective Jake Gittes.

As Gittes uncovers 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 film.

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 desperation: “Forget it, Jake, we’re Chinatown.”

The screenplay for Chinatown has been taught in almost every “screenwriting primer” since its release. He recalled a heated argument with Polanski over the film’s devastating ending – an ending that Polanski pushed for and that Towne later agreed was the right choice.

Towne wrote the film after turning down an opportunity to adapt F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The film was partly inspired by journalist Carey McWilliams’ 1946 book Southern California: An Island on the Land.

“There was a chapter in it called ‘Water, Water, Water’ that was a revelation to me. And I thought, ‘Why not make a movie about a crime that’s happening right in front of everyone’s eyes?'” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2009.

“Instead of a jewelled falcon, use something as mundane as faucets and make a conspiracy out of it,” he continued. And after reading about what they were doing, dumping water and starving the peasants, I realised the visual and dramatic possibilities were enormous.”

Author Sam Wasson, whose 2020 book The Big Goodbye is entirely devoted to the making of the film, claimed that Towne was heavily assisted by his college roommate Edward Taylor, who is not listed as a writer in the credits.

According to “The Big Goodbye,” for which Towne declined an interview, Taylor did not ask to be credited as the film’s writer because his “friendship with Robert” was more important to him.

Wasson also wrote that the film’s famous final line came from a vice cop who told Towne that crimes in LA’s Chinatown were rarely punished.

“Robert Towne once said that Chinatown is a state of mind,” wrote Wasson. “Not just a place on the map of Los Angeles, but a state of total wakefulness, almost indistinguishable from blindness. To dream you’re in paradise and wake up in the dark – that’s Chinatown. To think you’ve got it all figured out and then realize you’re dead – that’s Chinatown.”

Towne’s reputation began to decline in the late 1970s as the studios took more control and he began directing himself. His films included Personal Best and Tequila Sunrise, which received only lukewarm reviews.

The highly anticipated sequel to Chinatown, The Two Jakes, was released in 1990 but was a box office and critical flop.

Around the same time, Towne began working with Tom Cruise on the 1990 Don Simpson-Jerry Bruckheimer production Days of Thunder, in which Cruise played the lead role as a race car driver.

Towne later worked with him on “The Firm” and the first two “Mission: Impossible” films.

His most recent film was Ask the Dust, a story he wrote and directed that came out in 2006 and is based on John Fonte’s 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, including “The Indomitable”.

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 clothing store closed due to the Great Depression. His father changed the family name to Towne.

He had a lifelong passion for writing from a young age and said the proximity of the Warner Bros. Theater drew him to screenwriting.

With post wires