NEW YORK — Robert Towne, Oscar-winning screenwriter for “Shampoo,” “The Last Detail” and other acclaimed films, whose work on “Chinatown” became a model for art form and helped define the jaded allure of his hometown, Los Angeles, died. He was 89 years old.
Towne died Monday surrounded by family at his Los Angeles home, publicist Carri McClure said. She declined to comment on any cause of death.
In an industry that gave rise to sad jokes about the status of the writer, Towne for a time had a prestige comparable to that of the actors and directors with whom he worked. Through his friendships with two of the biggest stars of the 1960s and 1970s, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson, he wrote or co-wrote some of the characteristic films of an era when artists maintained an unusual level of creative control. A rare “auteur” among screenwriters, Towne managed to bring to the screen a highly personal and influential vision of Los Angeles.
“It’s such an illusionary town,” Towne told the Associated Press in a 2006 interview. “It’s the far west of America. It’s a kind of place of last resort. It’s a place where, in a word, people go to make their dreams come true. And they are forever disappointed.”
Recognizable in Hollywood for his high forehead and full beard, Towne has gained a academic award for “Chinatown” and was nominated three other times, for “The Last Detail”, “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 incisive, iconoclastic and entirely (original),” said “Shampoo” actor Lee Grant in X.
Towne’s success came after a long period of work in television, including “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and “The Lloyd Bridges Show,” and in low-budget films for “B” Producer Roger Corman. In a classic show business story, he owed his discovery in part to his psychiatrist, through whom he met Beatty, a fellow patient. While Beatty worked on “Bonnie and Clyde,” he brought Towne in for revisions of the Robert Benton-David Newman script and put him on set while the film was filmed in Texas.
Towne’s contributions were uncredited in “Bonnie and Clyde,” the landmark crime film released in 1967, and for years he was a favorite ghostwriter. He helped on “The Godfather”, “The Parallax View” and “Heaven Can Wait”, among others, and referred to himself as a “relief pitcher who could come in for one inning, not pitch the entire game”. But Towne was credited by name for Nicholson’s sexist film “The Last Detail” and Beatty’s sex comedy “Shampoo,” and was immortalized by “Chinatown,” the 1974 thriller set during the Great Depression.
“Chinatown” was directed by Roman Polanski and stars Nicholson as JJ “Jake” Gittes, a private detective asked to shadow the husband of Evelyn Mulwray (played by Faye Dunaway). Her husband is chief engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and Gittes finds herself trapped in a chaotic spiral of corruption and violence, personified by Evelyn’s cruel father, Noah Cross (John Huston).
Influenced by the fiction of Raymond Chandler, Towne resurrected the menace and mood of a classic Los Angeles film noir but cast Gittes’ labyrinthine odyssey into a grander, more insidious portrait of Southern California. The clues accumulate in a timeless detective story and lead helplessly to tragedy, summed up by one of the most repeated lines in film history, words of grim fatalism that a devastated Gittes receives from his partner Lawrence Walsh (Joe Mantell): “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.”
Towne’s script has been a staple in film writing classes ever since, though it also serves as a lesson in how films are often made and the risks of crediting any film to a single point of view. He would acknowledge having worked closely with Polanski as they revised and narrowed the story and argued fiercely with the director over the film’s despairing ending – an ending that Polanski pushed for and Towne later agreed was the right choice (no one was officially credited for write “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown”).
But the concept began with Towne, who turned down the opportunity to adapt “The Great Gatsby” for the screen so he could work on “Chinatown,” partially inspired by a 1946 book, “Southern California: An Island,” by Carey McWilliams. in the land.”
“There was a chapter called ‘Water, water, water,’ which was a revelation to me. And I thought, ‘Why not make a crime movie that gets right in front of everyone,'” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2009.
“Instead of a jewel-encrusted hawk, make it something as common as water taps and make it a conspiracy. And after reading about what they were doing, dumping water and starving farmers of their land, I realized that the visual and dramatic possibilities were enormous.”
The story of “Chinatown” itself became a detective story of sorts, explored in producer Robert Evans’s memoir, “The Kid Stays in the Picture”; in “East Riders, Raging Bulls”, by Peter Biskind, a history of Hollywood from the 1960s-1970s, and in “The Big Goodbye”, by Sam Wasson, entirely dedicated to “Chinatown”. In “The Big Goodbye,” published in 2020, Wasson alleged that Towne was largely helped by a ghostwriter — former college roommate Edward Taylor. According to “The Big Goodbye,” for which Towne declined to be interviewed, Taylor did not ask for credit in the film because her “friendship with Robert” was more important.
Wasson also wrote that the film’s famous final line originated with a vice police officer who told Towne that crimes in Chinatown were rarely prosecuted.
“Robert Towne once said that Chinatown is a state of mind,” Wasson wrote. “Not just a place on the map in Los Angeles, but a condition of total consciousness almost indistinguishable from blindness. Dreaming about being in paradise and waking up in the dark – that’s Chinatown. To think you’ve figured it all out and realize you’re dead – that’s Chinatown.”
The studios assumed more power after the mid-1970s and Towne’s position declined. His own directorial efforts, including “Personal Best” and “Tequila Sunrise,” have had mixed results. “The Two Jakes,” the long-awaited sequel to “Chinatown,” was a critical and commercial disappointment when released in 1990 and led to a temporary estrangement between Towne and Nicholson.
Around the same time, he agreed to work on a film far removed from the artistic aspirations of the 1970s, the Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer production “Days of Thunder,” starring Tom Cruise as a race car driver and Robert Duvall as his crew chief. . The 1990 film went over budget and was largely panned, although its admirers include Quentin Tarantino and countless racing fans. And Towne’s script popularized an expression used by Duvall after Cruise complains that another car hit him: “He didn’t hit you, he didn’t hit you, he didn’t poke you. He rubbed you.
“And rubbin, ‘son, it’s racin.’”
Towne later worked with Cruise on “The Firm” and the first two “Mission: Impossible” films. His most recent film was “Ask the Dust,” a Los Angeles story he wrote and directed that was released in 2006. Towne has been married twice, the second time to Luisa Gaule, and has two children. His brother, Roger Towne, also wrote screenplays, and his credits include “The Natural.”
Towne was born Robert Bertram Schwartz in Los Angeles and moved to San Pedro after his father’s business, a clothing store, closed because of the Great Depression. (His father changed his last name to Towne). He has always enjoyed writing and was inspired to work in film by the proximity of Warner Bros. Theater and by reading the critic James Agee. For a time, Towne worked on a tuna boat and spoke often about its impact.
“I identified fishing with writing in my mind, in that every script is like a trip that you’re taking — and you’re fishing,” he told the Writers Guild Association in 2013. “Sometimes they both involve an act of faith… Sometimes it’s just faith that sustains you, because you think, ‘Damn, nothing – not one bite today. Nothing is happening.'”
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AP Film Writer Jake Coyle contributed to this report.
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