1. Robert Towne started writing films for Roger Corman, including The Tomb of Ligeia in 1964, and was later part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking.
36 Facts About Robert Towne
1. 2.
Robert Towne collaborated with Tom Cruise on the films Days of Thunder, The Firm and the first two installments of the Mission: Impossible franchise.
3.
Robert Towne directed the sports dramas Personal Best and Without Limits, the crime thriller Tequila Sunrise, and the romantic drama Ask the Dust.
4.
Robert Towne grew up in San Pedro and Rolling Hills and attended Chadwick School.
5.
Robert Towne's family was Jewish, and had emigrated from Romania on his father's side and Russia on his mother's.
6.
Robert Towne had a younger brother, Roger, who co-wrote the 1984 film The Natural starring Robert Redford.
7.
Robert Towne graduated from Pomona College in Claremont, California, studying philosophy and literature.
8.
Robert Towne took an acting class with Roger Corman taught by Jeff Corey where his classmates included Jack Nicholson, Irvin Kershner, and Sally Kellerman.
9.
Robert Towne wrote the screenplay for the Corman-financed Last Woman on Earth, in which Robert Towne played one of the lead roles.
10.
Robert Towne wrote a screenplay for the Corman-directed The Tomb of Ligeia.
11.
Robert Towne went back to working in television when Corman hired him to write a script for a Western, which became A Time for Killing.
12.
Corman left the project during filming and Robert Towne took his name off the credits.
13.
Robert Towne was on set during filming and continued to work during post-production.
14.
The film was a huge success and although Robert Towne's contribution was credited only as a "special consultant", he began to earn a reputation in Hollywood as a top script doctor.
15.
Robert Towne did uncredited work on the scripts for Drive, He Said, directed by Jack Nicholson; Cisco Pike, which Robert Towne said turned into "a pretty good movie" but where he got "so angry with the director" he took his name off; and The New Centurions, where he was to share credit with Stirling Silliphant but asked for his name to be taken off after he saw the film.
16.
Robert Towne did uncredited work for Francis Ford Coppola during the making of The Godfather, including the final scene between Michael and Vito in a garden, shortly before Vito dies.
17.
Coppola later thanked Robert Towne for writing this pivotal and "very beautiful" scene in his Academy Award speech for Best Screenplay.
18.
Robert Towne did some work on The Parallax View at the behest of star Warren Beatty.
19.
Robert Towne received acclaim and was nominated in the Best Original and Adapted Screenplay categories for his scripts The Last Detail, Chinatown, and Shampoo.
20.
Robert Towne later said it was inspired by a chapter in Carey McWilliams's Southern California Country: An Island on the Land and a West magazine article on Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles.
21.
Robert Towne was credited for his work on The Yakuza and did script doctoring on The Missouri Breaks, Orca and Heaven Can Wait.
22.
Robert Towne wrote the script for Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, hoping to direct, but Personal Best was a financial failure, and he had to sell the Greystoke script.
23.
Robert Towne grew dissatisfied with the production and credited his dog, P H Vazak, with the script.
24.
Robert Towne did uncredited work on Deal of the Century, 8 Million Ways to Die, Tough Guys Don't Dance and Frantic.
25.
Robert Towne expressed his disappointment in The Two Jakes in many interviews.
26.
Robert Towne said he did not know how the rumour started and denied any planned trilogy.
27.
Robert Towne wrote the script for Days of Thunder and formed a close friendship with its star Tom Cruise.
28.
Robert Towne was one of the writers on Cruise's The Firm, then Beatty's Love Affair.
29.
Robert Towne had found the novel decades earlier during his research for Chinatown, as he was looking for authentic descriptions of 1930s Los Angeles.
30.
Robert Towne enjoyed the book, considering it "the best book about Los Angeles ever written", and arranged a meeting with Fante, himself a screenwriter.
31.
In 1993, Robert Towne wrote the script for free in exchange for the chance to direct the film.
32.
Robert Towne framed several of his signature films as elaborate melodramas.
33.
In 2019, Robert Towne began co-writing, with David Fincher, a Netflix prequel miniseries based on Chinatown character JJ Gittes, with Fincher serving as showrunner.
34.
In 1968, Robert Towne met actress Julie Payne; they were married from 1977 to 1982.
35.
Robert Towne was the former son-in-law of late actor John Payne and actress Anne Shirley.
36.
Robert Towne died at his home in Los Angeles on July 1,2024, at the age of 89.