Robert Towne, who wrote the Academy Award-lucrative screenplay for Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, has died at the age of 89.

Robert Towne, the screenwriter who wrote the Academy Award-winning main script for Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, has died at the age of 89. His publicist, Carri Mclure, declared that Towne died at his household in Los Angeles on Monday.

He initially set out to get the job accomplished as an actor and writer and promptly observed employment with Roger Corman. He scripted Corman’s Past Girl on Earth and also co-starred in the film beneath the pseudonym Edward Wain. He also wrote The Tomb of Ligeia for Corman. Towne then gained a name as a very best script medical doctor just just after Warren Beatty requested him to assistance out on Bonnie and Clyde. He went on to make uncredited contributions to films such as The Godfather, The Parallax Watch, Marathon Gentleman, The Missouri Breaks, Heaven Can Hold out, Crimson Tide, and far far more.

Towne to commence with happy Chinatown star Jack Nicholson in the late 1950s at an acting course taught by blacklisted actor Jeff Corey. They turned mates and even lived collectively at 1 point, and Towne understood Nicholson was destined for fame. “From the moment I laid eyes on him, I understood Jack was gonna be a star. … I wouldn’t have been able to envision any person else in the component,” Towne instructed Selection previous thirty day period. “It wasn’t just his ability for indignation, an innate perception that the environment may perhaps not be reasonable but that it damn well should be. It was also his passion for apparel, a specified eye for the finer factors, a disregard for — even aversion to — the common.”

He wrote Chinatown with Nicholson in intellect for the job of Jake Gittes but battled with Polanski far more than the ending, which he knowledgeable imagined as added upbeat. “I felt it was as well melodramatic to close it his way,” Towne stated, but years later, he admitted, “I was entirely incorrect, and he was suitable.“

A extended time later on, Towne would return to the earth of Jake Gittes with The Two Jakes, but the Jack Nicholson-directed sequel was met with blended opinions and a lacklustre box spot of function, forcing Towne to abandon applications for a 3rd installment. Prior to his dying, he had been performing function on a Chinatown prequel collection with David Fincher and not as well extended ago claimed that all the scripts knowledgeable been concluded.

Towne penned the scripts for The Previous Element, The Yakuza, Shampoo, Times of Thunder, The Firm, Enjoy Affair, Mission: Extremely difficult, and Mission: Difficult 2. He also directed a quantity of of his screenplays with Particular Very very best, Tequila Dawn, With out Limits, and Request the Dust.

He also wrote the script for Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, with the intention of directing it, but he was forced to sell his rights to the job, which he later claimed was “the major artistic regret of my daily life.” He taken off his title from the script, selecting to be credited as P.H. Vazak, which transpired to be the title of his pet dog.

Our concepts go out to Towne’s loved ones and pals, a genuine talent who remaining an indelible mark on cinema. He will be skipped.