Robert Towne, the screenwriter who wrote the Academy Award-winning original script for Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, has died at the age of 89. His publicist, Carri Mclure, announced that Towne died at his home in Los Angeles on Monday.
He originally set out to work as an actor and writer and quickly found employment with Roger Corman. He scripted Corman’s Last Woman on Earth and also co-starred in the film under the pseudonym Edward Wain. He also wrote The Tomb of Ligeia for Corman. Towne then earned a reputation as a top script doctor after Warren Beatty asked him to help out on Bonnie and Clyde. He went on to make uncredited contributions to movies such as The Godfather, The Parallax View, Marathon Man, The Missouri Breaks, Heaven Can Wait, Crimson Tide, and more.
Towne first met Chinatown star Jack Nicholson in the late 1950s at an acting class taught by blacklisted actor Jeff Corey. They became friends and even lived together at one point, and Towne knew Nicholson was destined for fame. “From the moment I laid eyes on him, I knew Jack was gonna be a star. … I wouldn’t have been able to envision anyone else in the part,” Towne told Variety last month. “It wasn’t just his capacity for indignation, an innate sense that the world may not be fair but that it damn well should be. It was also his passion for clothing, a certain eye for the finer things, a disregard for — even aversion to — the ordinary.”
He wrote Chinatown with Nicholson in mind for the role of Jake Gittes but battled with Polanski over the ending, which he had imagined as more upbeat. “I felt it was too melodramatic to end it his way,” Towne said, but years later, he admitted, “I was wrong, and he was right.“
Decades later, Towne would return to the world of Jake Gittes with The Two Jakes, but the Jack Nicholson-directed sequel was met with mixed reviews and a lacklustre box office, forcing Towne to abandon plans for a third installment. Prior to his death, he had been working on a Chinatown prequel series with David Fincher and recently said that all the scripts had been completed.
Towne penned the scripts for The Last Detail, The Yakuza, Shampoo, Days of Thunder, The Firm, Love Affair, Mission: Impossible, and Mission: Impossible 2. He also directed several of his screenplays with Personal Best, Tequila Sunrise, Without Limits, and Ask the Dust.
He also wrote the script for Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, with the intention of directing it, but he was forced to sell his rights to the project, which he later said was “the biggest creative regret of my life.” He removed his name from the script, choosing to be credited as P.H. Vazak, which happened to be the name of his dog.
Our thoughts go out to Towne’s family and friends, a true talent who left an indelible mark on cinema. He will be missed.