Robert Towne, who wrote the Academy Award-winning screenplay for Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, has died at the age of 89.
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, 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.
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