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