Robert Towne
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| Robert Towne | |||||||||||||||
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 Towne in the 1960 movie Last Woman on Earth |
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| Born | November 23, 1934 Los Angeles, California |
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| Spouse(s) | Julie Payne (m.1977) Luisa Gaule (1984-) |
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Robert Burton Towne (born November 23, 1934) is an American screenwriter and director. He is the author of many notable film scripts, including Chinatown (1974), for which he received an Academy Award, plus its sequel, The Two Jakes (1990), and Oscar-nominated screenplays The Last Detail and Shampoo as well as the first two Mission Impossible films.
Towne is also well-known in the motion-picture industry as an uncredited script doctor who has worked in such a capacity for The Godfather, Bonnie and Clyde, The Parallax View and dozens of other Hollywood films.[1]
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 he did not fetch the award.
Towne also wrote and directed Personal Best (1982), a fictional drama of female track-and-field athletes, and Without Limits (1998), a biopic based on the life of distance runner Steve Prefontaine. His crime story Tequila Sunrise (1988) co-starred Mel Gibson as a reformed cocaine dealer and Kurt Russell as a detective, with Michelle Pfeiffer as a woman who becomes romantically involved with both.
A project Towne had long sought to bring to the screen came to fruition in 2006 with Ask the Dust, a romantic period piece set in Los Angeles based on the acclaimed novel by John Fante and starring Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek. The film failed at the box office, though it did receive many favorable reviews.
Towne has been announced as writer-director of The 39 Steps, a 2009 remake of the 1935 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
On occasion, he has acted on screen, as in 1960's Roger Corman sci-fi film Last Woman on Earth, which Towne also wrote.
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.
Towne is a graduate of Pomona College in Claremont, CA.
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[edit] Awards
- Academy Award
- 1974: Nominated, Best Adapted Screenplay, The Last Detail
- 1975: Won, Best Original Screenplay, Chinatown
- 1976: Nominated, Best Original Screenplay, Shampoo
- 1985: Nominated, Best Adapted Screenplay, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan
- BAFTA Award
- 1975: Won, Best Screenplay, The Last Detail and Chinatown
- Golden Globe Award
- 1975: Won, Best Screenplay - Motion Picture, Chinatown
- Edgar Award
- 1975: Won, Best Motion Picture Screenplay, Chinatown[citation needed]
[edit] Trivia
In an interview with Charlie Rose, Towne stated his two of his favourite screenwriters were Paddy Chayevsky and Robert Bolt.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Kenneth Turan, Robert Towne's Hollywood Without Heroes, New York Times (27 November 1988)
