Robert Towne
Known for Writing
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). Description above from the Wikipedia article Robert Towne, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Filmography
Suspect Zero
2004
as Professor Dates (uncredited)
Salinger
2013
as Self - Screenwriter
Billy Wilder: The Human Comedy
1998
as Self
Shampoo
1975
as Party Guest (uncredited)
A Decade Under the Influence
2003
as Self
The Pick-up Artist
1987
as Stan
What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael
2019
as Self
You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story
2008
as Self
Rescued from the Closet
2001
as Self
Drive, He Said
1971
as Richard
Reel Radicals: The Sixties Revolution in Film
2002
as Self (uncredited)
Last Woman on Earth
1960
as Martin Joyce
Revolution! The Making of 'Bonnie and Clyde'
2008
as Self
Creature from the Haunted Sea
1961
as Sparks Moran / Agent XK150 / Narrator
The Zodiac Killer
1971
as Man in Bar #3
Budd Boetticher: A Man Can Do That
2005
as Self
A Sad Flower in the Sand
2001
as Self
Cadillac Desert: Water and the Transformation of Nature
1997
as Self - Screenwriter, 'Chinatown'
Robert Towne
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