Robert Towne, Legendary Chinatown Screenwriter, Dies at 89

Robert Towne, the Oscar-winning screenwriter behind the script for 1974 classic Chinatown, has died, his publicist confirmed to THR. He was 89.

According to his publicist, he died on Monday in his Los Angeles home.

Towne was born and raised in Los Angeles and started his Hollywood career in the 1960s, largely as an actor and writer with legendary B-movie director Roger Corman, who just passed away in May. Towne wrote Corman’s 1960 film The Last Woman on Earth, and starred in his 1961 movie Creature From the Haunted Sea.

As Towne’s profile rose in the industry, he became well known as a reliable script doctor. Perhaps most famously, he did uncredited work on The Godfather, for which Francis Ford Coppola thanked him while accepting the Best Screenplay Oscar. He did other uncredited work on films including Drive, He Said (1971), Cisco Pike (1972), and The New Centurions (1972), as well as helping with the script for 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde.

But Towne is most famous for an astonishing run of screenplays he wrote in the ’70s: The Last Detail (1973), Chinatown (1974), and Shampoo (1975). He earned Oscar nominations with each script, with Chinatown securing him a win. The latter two in particular cemented Towne’s distinct, frequently lonely views on Los Angeles as a part of Hollywood history.

Towne was a director as well, having helmed 1982’s Personal Best and 1988’s Tequila Sunrise. He has some uncredited directing work too, on Deal of the Century (1983), 8 Million Ways to Die (1986), Tough Guys Don’t Dance (1987), and Frantic (1988).

Along with his partnership with Corman, Towne had a number of strong relationships with actors across his long career. Among them is Chinatown star Jack Nicholson, who Towne first met in an acting class in the ’60s, and Tom Cruise, which led to him writing the screenplays for 1996’s Mission: Impossible and 2000’s Mission: Impossible II.

His more recent credits include consulting on the hit AMC drama Mad Men, and it was confirmed back in 2019 that he was working with David Fincher on a Chinatown prequel for Netflix. Towne gave an update on the project in a recent interview with Variety, telling the publication last month, “All I’m likely to say is yes, all the episodes have been written for Netflix.”

Towne is survived by his wife Luisa and two daughters.

Thumbnail credit: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Writers Guild of America, West

Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.