American screenwriter and director Robert Bertram Schwartz was considered one of Hollywood’s greatest writers.
Robert Towne, whose career spanned some of the greatest New Hollywood classicsha died at 89 years old. According to her publicist, Carri McClure, she passed away on Monday surrounded by her family. at his home in Los Angeles. The cause of death has not yet been revealed.
Roger Corman, the independent filmmaker Known as the “Spiritual Godfather of New Hollywood,” he took Towne under his wing after Towne attended the acting classes by Corman, along with other future greats como Jack Nicholson.
Towne wrote films for Corman before becoming a script doctor. Warren Beatty had Towne retool the script for 1967’s ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ and wrote an uncredited scene for ‘The Godfather.’ by Francis Ford Coppola.
Although not appear in the official creditsin his speech Oscar acceptance, Coppola thanked Towne by name. This was the moment that launched Towne to fame, which he followed with some of his most famous films in the three-year period 1973-1975: ‘The Last Detail’, ‘Chinatown’** and ‘Shampoo’.
‘Chinatown’, la Roman Polanski movie starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, was nominated for 11 Oscars and Towne won the only movie award, the one with the best original screenplay. It is the film for which Towne is best known and is still considered today a classic of the neo-noir genreregardless of the disparate public opinion about its director.
After the success of the 70s, Towne He became a director in the 80s, starting with the 1982 film ‘Personal Best’. He then wrote the script for ‘Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes’. However, after ‘Personal Best’** was not a commercial success, could not direct it. Increasingly dissatisfied with productionchanged the script credits to his dog’s name, PH Vazak.
When ‘Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan,* Lord of the Apes’ **was nominated for three Oscarsone of them for best screenplay based on other people’s material, Towne’s dog became the first dog nominated for an Oscar as a screenwriter.
In 1990, the sequel to ‘Chinatown’, ‘The Two Jakes’, was released, but did not achieve commercial and critical success from the original. Although it was a disappointment for the screenwriterthat same year he found critical success with ‘Days of Thunder’, his first collaboration with Tom Cruise.
Towne would later write Cruise’s film ‘The Firm’, the first two of ‘Mission: Impossible’** and Cruise co-produced his third film as a director, ‘Unlimited’. In 2006 she directed her last film, ‘Ask the Dust’.
Towne married for the first time with actress Julia Payne in 1977. Their daughter Katherine was born in 1978. before divorcing in 1982. In 1984 he married Luisa Gaule, with whom he had a daughter, Chiara.
