American director and screenwriter Robert Towne, winner of the Oscar for best original screenplay for Chinatown, died on Tuesday at the age of 89.
The news was confirmed by her publicist Carrie McClure in a statement to media outlets such as Variety, where she explained that Towne died at her home in Los Angeles, without specifying the cause of her death.
In 1960, Towne made a name for herself in the industry by writing the script and acting in the film Last Woman on Earth, directed by Roger Corman, who died on May 9 and was responsible for discovering the talent of actors such as Jack Nicholson and Robert De Niro.
A year later he collaborated with Corman again as an actor in the film ‘Creature from the Haunted Sea’, and after that, his acting career extended to just over four films.
However, Towne built a long and recognized career as a screenwriter, sometimes even as a ghostwriter, since he did not receive credit in many of the projects in which he participated, such as in ‘Marathon Man’ or ‘Heaven Can Wait’.
Films such as Hal Ashby’s ‘The Last Detail’ (1973) and ‘Shampoo’ (1975) and Roman Polanski’s ‘Chinatown’ (1974) established her career after earning Academy Award nominations for each of them.
It was Polanski’s film noir, starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway about a detective investigating a case of infidelity, that won him the Oscar and the Golden Globe for best original screenplay.
The screenwriter also worked on several television projects such as ‘The Man from UNCLE’ and ‘The Lloyd Bridges Show’.
He was a consultant and screenwriter for the film starring Warren Beatty and Dunaway about the fugitive criminals ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ and Francis Ford Coppola thanked him for having written one of the key scenes in ‘The Godfather’.
Towne also worked as a director without particular success on films such as ‘Personal Best’ and ‘Tequila Sunrise’.
In 1997 he received a lifetime achievement award from the Writers Guild of America.
And some of the latest credits in his career are the first two films in the Mission Impossible franchise, the film Ask the Dust (2006) or the series Welcome to the Basement (2013-2017).
2024-07-03 02:41:02
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