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Robert Towne

  • Born: Nov 23, 1934 in Los Angeles, California
  • Occupation: Writer, Director, Actor
  • Active: '60s-2000s
  • Major Genres: Drama, Romance
  • Career Highlights: Chinatown, The Firm, The Yakuza
  • First Major Screen Credit: The Last Woman on Earth (1960)

Biography

Robert Towne would prefer his appearance as the stick-like leading actor Edward Wain in the prententious Roger Corman post-apocalyptic effort The Last Woman on Earth (1960) be forgotten -- in addition to the film's screenplay, which was Towne's first. Despite this inauspicious beginning (and his follow-up starring appearance in Creature From the Haunted Sea [1961]), Towne appreciated the early opportunity afforded him by Corman, and remained with the producer/director to pen the screenplay for Tomb of Ligeia (1965) (two more scripts for Corman, A Time for Killing and Captain Nemo and the Underwater City, were heavily revised by others). From there, Towne could only go up, and this he did as script consultant for Warren Beatty's Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and as full screenwriter for Villa Rides (1967). After one more acting turn in Drive, He Said (1971), Towne made a good living as a screenwriter and troubleshooting script doctor. Towne's output ranged from the salty profanities of The Last Detail (1967) to the insightful glances at Nixon-era mores in Shampoo (1968) to the misty mysticism of The Natural (1984) to the dewy-eyed romanticism of Warren Beatty's 1994 remake of Love Affair. In 1974, Towne won a Best Screenplay Academy Award for director Roman Polanski's Chinatown. This film contained one of the few totally unhappy endings in the Towne canon -- for the most part, he prefers upbeat denouements, to the extent of overhauling the endings for the screen versions of Bernard Malamud's The Natural and John Grisham's The Firm. In 1981, Robert Towne made his directorial debut with Personal Best; more successful was the second Towne-directed effort, 1988's Tequila Sunrise. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

 
 
Wikipedia: Robert Towne
Towne in the 1960 movie Last Woman on Earth
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Towne in the 1960 movie Last Woman on Earth

Robert Burton Towne (born November 23, 1934) is an American actor, screenwriter and director. He is the author of many notable film scripts, including Chinatown (1974), for which he received an Oscar, its sequel, The Two Jakes (1990), and Shampoo (1975), as well as the first two Mission Impossible films. He is also noted as an uncredited script doctor who has worked in such a capacity for The Godfather and other notable movies.

After working for years on a script of Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) he grew dissatisfied with the production and credited his dog, P.H. Vazak, with the script. Vazak became the first dog nominated for an Oscar for screenwriting, but did not win. Towne also directed Without Limits (1998), a biopic based on the life of iconic athlete Steve Prefontaine, and Ask the Dust (2006), a romance film set in period Los Angeles based on the novel by Los Angeles author John Fante and starring Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek. Both were produced by Tom Cruise and failed at the box office, though the former did receive favorable reviews from film critics.

His father-in-law was once actor John Payne. His daughter (with actress Julie Payne) is Katharine Towne and he was once the father-in-law of Charlie Hunnam.

He is a graduate of Pomona College in Claremont, CA.

Awards

Trivia

In an interview with Charlie Rose, Towne stated his two of his favourite screenwriters were Paddy Chayevsky and Robert Bolt.

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

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Writer. Copyright © 2006 All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Robert Towne".  Read more

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