Robert Towne Cause of Death: Robert Towne Dies at 89

At 89, Robert Towne, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Chinatown—regarded as one of the best scripts ever—passed away. Towne, a screenwriter who was also nominated for two films, Shampoo, and The Last Detail, passed away on Monday at his Los Angeles home surrounded by family, according to his publicist, who withheld the cause of death.

Robert Towne Dies at 89:

Robert Towne passed away on Monday at his Los Angeles home. He was a prominent screenwriter of the so-called New Hollywood, having won an Oscar for his script for Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown” and contributing to other noteworthy movies. He was eighty-nine. Carri McClure, his publicist, announced his passing on Tuesday. She didn’t provide a reason.

Screenwriter of ‘Chinatown’ and More:

Part of an incredible run was Mr. Towne’s Academy Award. He had three consecutive nominations for the Oscar for Best Screenplay; his victory in 1974 for “Chinatown” occurred between nominations for Hal Ashby’s films “The Last Detail” and “Shampoo.” Additionally, he contributed uncredited screenplay doctoring to the 1967 film “Bonnie and Clyde” and the 1972 film “The Godfather.”

Though he was infamous for producing lengthy, asymmetrical screenplays well over their deadlines, he was nonetheless universally considered a master of dialogue composition. “A fascinating contradiction: in many ways idealistic, sentimental, and very talented; in others a devout compromiser, a delayer, so insecure that he can sometimes seem devious,” was how David Thomson, a cinema historian, described him.

Although Mr. Towne went on to direct a few films and had a few on-screen cameos, his legacy as a writer will always be his most notable achievement. Even though he continued to create in the twenty-first century, most of his notoriety stems from the work he produced in the 1970s.

The New Hollywood was a peak for American directors who followed the French auteur model of creating quirky, intimate films, as well as for gifted screenwriters like Mr. Towne and a small army of talented actors who did not fit the old Hollywood mold. It started in the late 1960s with avant-garde films like “Midnight Cowboy” and “Easy Rider” and continued until 1980 with “Raging Bull.”

Pauline Kael, the influential cinema critic who peaked during the New Hollywood period, particularly fondled Mr. Towne. “Towne may be a great new screenwriter in a structured tradition — a flaky classicist,” she said in her review of “Shampoo,” citing his ear for accurate speech and his skill for never pressing a thesis.

However, neither Mr. Towne’s notoriety nor the New Hollywood were meant to last.

It was referred to as “the last good time” by Peter Bart, Paramount’s vice president of production. It was overtaken by a wave of superheroes, spectacular effects, and studio-produced blockbusters, not to mention the drugs, drink, and promiscuous behavior that characterized the 1970s.

The joys and dangers of that hedonistic era were nothing new to Mr. Towne. After 

having extramarital romances with Patrice Donnelly and Mariel Hemingway, who costarred as track athletes in his debut film, the 1982 box office bomb “Personal Best,” he terminated his first marriage to the actress Julie Payne. (There were also reports that cocaine usage was widespread on the set.) At approximately the same period, his career started a protracted downturn while he continued to write.

Robert Towne: Who is He?

Robert Bertram Schwartz, the father of Mr. Towne, was born in Los Angeles in November 1934 and raised in the blue-collar fishing town of San Pedro, California. When he was around seven years old, he saw “Sergeant York,” his first movie. After that, he claimed he became addicted to movies.

Lou, his father, had a women’s clothes business, but he had higher goals. After renaming the family from Schwartz to Towne and entering the real estate market, he finally relocated to the gated Rolling Hills enclave in wealthy Palos Verdes, California, with his wife Helen and their two kids.

Robert graduated in 1956 from Pomona College, where he studied philosophy and English after attending the prestigious Chadwick School. While enrolled in an acting class, he met Jack Nicholson, another budding actor. The two would go on to become good friends and partners, but they would later disagree over the development of a “Chinatown” sequel.

Robert Towne’s Career:

Writing for television series like “The Outer Limits, ” “The Man From UNCLE” and Roger Corman’s B-movie Factory was Mr. Towne’s first job. In the 1960s, he authored and starred in “The Last Woman on Earth,” a typically low-key Corman movie. Soon after came more prominent work, much of it uncredited rewrites of other people’s screenplays.

His Oscar for “Chinatown” wasn’t without pain. The film centers on private investigator Jake Gittes (played by Mr. Nicholson), who deciphers a convoluted plot by which influential figures in Los Angeles in the 1930s want to amass wealth by controlling the city’s water supply in the face of a drought. Gittes learns that Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway), the wife of the slain water commissioner, gave birth to a daughter after being raped by her evil father, Noah Cross (John Huston), which adds to the film’s sinister undertone.

Since evil is punished, Evelyn murders her father in Mr. Towne’s original text, which may be considered a happy ending. (Sam Wasson claimed in his 2020 book “The Big Goodbye: ‘Chinatown’ and the Last Years of Hollywood” that Mr. Towne had an unacknowledged co-writer named Edward Taylor.) However, Mr. Polanski had darker thoughts. He had recently lost his pregnant wife, the actress Sharon Tate, to the homicidal Charles Manson family and had averted death in his home in Poland during the Holocaust. He desired for Noah to inherit the offspring of his incest and for Evelyn to perish.

Before shooting started, the director and writer sparred for two months at Mr. Polanski’s leased home. Mr. Polanski noted that during an interview with Peter Biskind for his book “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How Rock ‘n’ Roll, Drugs, and Sex Generation Saved Hollywood” (1998), Bob would fight for every word, for every line of the dialogue as if it was engraved in marble. Mr. Towne finally agreed when he said, “We fought every day over everything.”

Ultimately, Mr. Polanski won. Jake watches on helplessly as Noah takes off with their daughter after shooting Evelyn in the skull. The movie’s final phrase, “Forget it, Jake,” has become a classic and is considered to be the epilogue. Chinatown is here.

The plan was for Mr. Towne to direct his screenplay for “The Two Jakes,” a follow-up to “Chinatown,” which would once again feature Mr. Nicholson as Jake Gittes and revolve around real estate and oil trades in post-World War II Los Angeles. However, the project was beset with issues, including acrimonious disagreements between Mr. Towne, Mr. Nicholson, and producer Robert Evans, leading to its eventual shelving. In the end, Mr. Nicholson directed it, and when it was released in 1990, both critics and spectators had mixed feelings about it.

The screenplay for “Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes” was another project Mr. Towne spent years finishing. However, he was so unhappy with the completed picture, which was helmed by Hugh Hudson and released in 1984, that he demanded that his name be substituted in the credits with “P.H. Vazak,” which is shorthand for the name of his cherished Hungarian sheepdog, Hira Vazak of Pannonia. Despite this, his script for “Greystoke” received an Oscar nomination. (Peter Shaffer’s screenplay for “Amadeus” prevailed.)

Mr. Towne returned to director with “Tequila Sunrise,” a thriller picture starring Mel Gibson, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Kurt Russell, six years after the underwhelming reception of “Personal Best.” “Without Limits” (1998) and “Ask the Dust” (2006) were the last two additional films he would direct, despite the film experiencing considerable critical and commercial success.

He continued to write, significantly contributing to the first two “Mission: Impossible” movies. He was also listed as a “consulting producer” for the “Mad Men” season from 2014 to 2015. However, just like New Hollywood, his heyday was long gone.

Along with his brother Roger, Mr. Towne is survived by his wife Luisa Towne, two kids from his second marriage, Chiara Towne from his second marriage, and Katharine Towne from his marriage to Ms. Payne.

When Mr. Towne told The New York Times in 1988, just before “Tequila Sunrise” was about to debut, he appeared to be summarizing the predicament of all Hollywood screenwriters: “The characters I write about are men who control events far, far less than events control them.” Even when my characters don’t win or have a significant enough impact on the events, they still manage to get captured. These folks manage to get by.

Still, he insisted that it was worth the work to muddle. He explained why movies were his preferred media in a 1991 column for Esquire.

He wrote, “I’m not and never have been itching to write plays or novels.” “I adore watching movies. In other words, when you want to show what you have to say, you are stuck with movies to convey it. Movies best describe what I have to say and demonstrate.