Robert Towne, the screenwriter and director whose Oscar-winning work in the 1974 film Chinatown enshrined him in Hollywood history, has died at the age of 89.
Martin Mull, Comedian and Actor of 'Clue' and 'Arrested Development,' Dead at 80
Towne died at his home on Monday, his publicist Carri McClure confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter .
During his celebrated career, Towne wrote the Hal Ashby films The Last Detail in 1973 and 1975’s Shampoo , receiving Academy Award nominations for both. He also wrote and directed 1988 crime drama Tequila Sunrise — starring Mel Gibson, Kurt Russell, Michelle Pfeiffer — which garnered an Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography.
Early in his career, Towne became known in Hollywood as a “script doctor,” working on screenplays for iconic movies such as Bonnie and Clyde in 1967 and 1972’s The Godfather .
Kinky Friedman, Proudly Eccentric Texas Singer-Songwriter, Dead at 79
When The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola accepted a screenwriting Oscar for the legendary film, he gave “credit where credit is due,” and thanked Towne for writing “the very beautiful scene between Marlon [Brando] and Al Pacino in the garden.” The scene is known for the passing of power and love between the Mafia don and his son Michael.
To mark Chinatown ‘s 50th anniversary, Towne spoke with Collider in June and shared his insight for hopeful screenwriters. “You’ll never know, when you first sit down to write, if a screenplay will be good or mediocre, or if it’ll exist at all. You can’t really set out to write a ‘good’ screenplay. You muddle through. You tell the story to friends, you listen to see what form it takes, what they respond to, what they don’t. You take that form and turn it into an outline, which then turns into note cards as you write down the details of each scene — and if you can write a scene without saying a word, by all means, do that.”
He continued, “Once that’s completed, you ignore those note cards and allow your characters to have free rein, to meander, to suggest, to demand, to destroy. The more formed they become, the more you’ll find your story changing substantially. Sometimes you lead and sometimes you follow. You work and think and rework and rethink, toss out and put back in, and over the months and quite possibly years, something will start to take shape that someone else, at some later juncture, may just call good.”
Bill Cobbs, Prolific Character Actor in 'The Bodyguard,' 'Night at the Museum,' Dead at 90
Most Popular
Comments / 0