Robert Towne
Writing
Born: 1934-11-23 in San Pedro, Los Angeles, California, USA
Biography
Robert Towne (born Robert Bertram Schwartz; November 23, 1934 - July 1, 2024) was an American screenwriter, producer, director and actor. He was part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking. He is best known for his Academy Award-winning original screenplay for Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974), which is widely considered one of the greatest screenplays ever written. He later said it was inspired by a chapter in Carey McWilliams's Southern California Country: An Island on the Land (1946) and a West magazine article on Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles. Towne also wrote the sequel, The Two Jakes (1990); the Hal Ashby comedy-dramas The Last Detail (1973) and Shampoo (1975); and the first two Mission: Impossible films. Towne directed the sports dramas Personal Best (1982) and Without Limits (1998), the crime thriller Tequila Sunrise (1988), and the romantic crime drama Ask the Dust (2006). Description above from the Wikipedia article Robert Towne, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For
Suspect Zero
Professor Dates (uncredited)
Shampoo
Party Guest (uncredited)
The Pick-up Artist
Stan
Salinger
Self - Screenwriter
The Story of Film: An Odyssey
Self
Last Woman on Earth
Martin Joyce
Creature from the Haunted Sea
Sparks Moran / Agent XK150 / Narrator
A Decade Under the Influence
Self
The Zodiac Killer
Man in Bar #3
Drive, He Said
Richard
What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael
Self
You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story
Self
Budd Boetticher: A Man Can Do That
Self
Revolution! The Making of 'Bonnie and Clyde'
Self
Rescued from the Closet
Self
Billy Wilder: The Human Comedy
Self
A Sad Flower in the Sand
Self
Robert Towne
Halloween Monster Bash
Sparks Moran (archive footage)
Making of Chinatown
Cadillac Desert
Self - Screenwriter, 'Chinatown'