Robert Towne, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Chinatown who was also one of Hollywood’s most renowned script doctors, has died. He was 89.
Born in Los Angeles, Towne started his film career acting and writing for producer Roger Corman. In the early 1970s he emerged as a key figure in the New Hollywood movement, collaborating with filmmakers including Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty.
Towne’s credited scripts from the period included Roman Polanski’s classic Chinatown as well as The Last Detail and Shampoo. But he was also known as one of the industry’s leading script doctors, doing uncredited work on films such as Bonnie And Clyde, The Parallax View, McCabe And Mrs Miller and The Godfather.
Later, Towne wrote scripts for several of Tom Cruise’s early box office hits, among them Days Of Thunder, The Firm and Mission: Impossible and its first sequel.
He also began to direct, working from his own scripts on Personal Best, Tequila Sunrise, Ask The Dust and other projects.
Besides his 1975 Academy Award for Chinatown, Towne earned Oscar nominations for The Last Detail, Shampoo and Greystoke: The Legend Of Tarzan, Lord Of The Apes. He won Writers Guild of America awards for Chinatown, Shampoo and TV series Mad Men (on which he was a consulting producer) and, in 1997, the Guild’s Laurel Award for screenwriting achievement. He also won a Bafta for Chinatown and The Last Detail.
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