Robert Towne
Biography
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).
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Filmography
What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael
2019
as Self
Salinger
2013
as Self - Screenwriter
- No poster
Mission: Remarkable - 40 Years of Creating the Impossible
2010
as Self
You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story
2008
as Self
Revolution! The Making of 'Bonnie and Clyde'
2008
as Self
Making of Chinatown
2007
Budd Boetticher: A Man Can Do That
2005
as Self
Suspect Zero
2004
as Professor Dates (uncredited)
A Decade Under the Influence
2003
as Self
- No poster
Reel Radicals: The Sixties Revolution in Film
2002
as Self (uncredited)
Rescued from the Closet
2001
as Self
A Sad Flower in the Sand
2001
as Self
Billy Wilder: The Human Comedy
1998
as Self
Halloween Monster Bash
1991
as Sparks Moran (archive footage)
The Pick-up Artist
1987
as Stan
Shampoo
1975
as Party Guest (uncredited)
Drive, He Said
1971
as Richard
The Zodiac Killer
1971
as Man in Bar #3
Creature from the Haunted Sea
1961
as Sparks Moran / Agent XK150 / Narrator
Last Woman on Earth
1960
as Martin Joyce
Robert Towne
Unreleased