Robert Towne

Known for WritingBorn 1934-11-23Died 2024-07-01San Pedro, Los Angeles, California, USA

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.Read more

Movies & web series

Cadillac Desert: Water and the Transformation of Nature

You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story

The Godfather

Mad Men

Reel Radicals: The Sixties Revolution in Film

A Decade Under the Influence

The Story of Film: An Odyssey

Chinatown

The Outer Limits

Bonnie and Clyde

Budd Boetticher: A Man Can Do That

Mission: Impossible

McCabe & Mrs. Miller

What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael

The Yakuza

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

The Last Detail

The Firm

Frantic

Without Limits

The Parallax View

Rescued from the Closet

Salinger

Heaven Can Wait

The New Centurions

Days of Thunder

Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes

The Bedroom Window

Mission: Impossible II

Billy Wilder: The Human Comedy

Tequila Sunrise

The Tomb of Ligeia

Villa Rides

The Two Jakes

Personal Best

Shampoo

The Lloyd Bridges Show

Suspect Zero

The Pick-up Artist

Ask the Dust

Drive, He Said

Cisco Pike

8 Million Ways to Die

Love Affair

Revolution! The Making of 'Bonnie and Clyde'

Tough Guys Don't Dance

Deal of the Century

The Zodiac Killer