Robert Towne, Oscar-Winning “Chinatown” Screenwriter, Dies at 89

Robert Towne made uncredited contributions to the screenplays of iconic movies like 'The Godfather' and 'Bonnie and Clyde' during his decades-long career

Robert Towne, an Academy Award-winning screenwriter who wrote the 1974 classic Chinatown during a career that lasted more than five decades, is dead. He was 89.

Multiple outlets reported Tuesday, July 2 that Towne's publicist Carri McClure shared that the screenwriter and film producer died Monday, July 1 at his home in Los Angeles. The Associated Press added that his publicist noted he was surrounded by his family and that she did not comment on his cause of death.

Towne was born on Nov. 23, 1934 in Los Angeles. He is best remembered for winning an Oscar at the 1975 Academy Awards for his screenplay for Chinatown, which starred Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway and was directed by Roman Polanski. His win came in the middle of three consecutive years of nominations for his scripts; in 1974, he received a nomination for writing The Last Detail, which also starred Nicholson, and in 1976 Towne and Warren Beatty were both nominated for Best Original Screenplay for their work on the film Shampoo.

Towne's first few film screenwriting credits came on productions directed by Roger Corman in the early 1960s, as well as television episodes for The Outer Limits, Breaking Point and The Lloyd Bridges Show, among others. He notably first worked with Beatty, now 87, as an uncredited script consultant on his classic 1967 movie Bonnie and Clyde, paving the way for a lengthy career as a "script doctor" for films he did not otherwise write the entirety of.

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Other films Towne worked on as an uncredited writer include 1972's The Godfather, 1974's The Parallax View and 1978's Heaven Can Wait. The Godfather filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola even thanked Towne at the 1973 Oscars for writing The Godfather's iconic garden scene between Marlon Brando and Al Pacino, while accepting its award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

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In 1985, Towne also received a fourth Oscar nomination for his work on 1984's Greystroke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes. Towards the end of the 20th century and into the 21st century, he wrote several films starring Tom Cruise, including the first two Mission: Impossible movies as well as 1990's Days of Thunder and 1993's The Firm.

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Towne's last screenwriting credits came for the 2006 movie Ask the Dust and two episodes of the 2010s television series Welcome to the Basement. He was also credited as a consulting producer on the seventh season of Mad Men, according to IMDb.

According to multiple outlets, Towne is survived by his wife Luisa Towne, his two daughters, one of whom came from an earlier marriage to the late actress Julie Payne, and his brother Roger.

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