CNN
—
Robert Towne, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of a variety of acclaimed films, together with the traditional 1974 noir thriller “Chinatown” starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, has died. He was 89 years previous.
The information was confirmed by Towne’s publicist Carri McClure, who mentioned he died on Monday “peacefully at house surrounded by his loving household.” No explanation for demise was offered.
Towne gained the Academy Award for finest unique screenplay for “Chinatown,” which final month celebrated 50 years since being launched.
Towne loved an enormously productive interval within the Nineteen Seventies, writing such movies as “Shampoo,” starring Warren Beatty, and “The Final Element,” additionally starring Nicholson. He was additionally nicely generally known as an achieved script polisher and ghost author, penning scenes for a variety of films on which he wasn’t credited, together with “The Godfather.”
Towne additionally cowrote the screenplay for “The Agency,” starring Tom Cruise, and labored with the actor on the primary two “Mission: Unimaginable” films. All the time in excessive demand, Towne wrote the “Chinatown” sequel “The Two Jakes,” directed by Nicholson, and served as a consulting producer on the Emmy-winning sequence “Mad Males.” Moreover, he directed 4 movies, together with 1988’s “Tequila Dawn” starring Kurt Russell, Michelle Pfeiffer and Mel Gibson. Towne wrote the screenplay for that movie as nicely.
He acquired a complete of 4 Academy Award screenplay nominations, together with three in a row for “The Final Element,” “Chinatown” and “Shampoo.” The final got here for 1984’s “Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes,” though Towne disliked the movie a lot that he had his identify eliminated and was credited as P.H. Vazak, which was the identify of his canine.
Born in Los Angeles, Towne mentioned in an interview with Variety earlier this 12 months, tied to the fiftieth anniversary of “Chinatown,” that as a screenwriter he favored writing for a specific star, versus engaged on a script with out realizing who can be taking part in the important thing roles.
“Having an actual individual to put in writing for merely makes my process simpler and extra pleasurable,” he mentioned.
A lifelong screenwriter hailed as a grasp of the craft, Towne additionally advised Selection final month, concerning the altering tendencies and appetites of Hollywood and the viewing public, “Storytelling doesn’t cease just because a tradition makes use of totally different mechanisms. Audiences nonetheless wish to imagine. They’re merely extra refined, they’ve grown used to the medium of movie so that they’re not so simply beguiled.”
This story has been up to date with extra data.
CNN’s Brian Lowry contributed to this report.