Oscar-winning screenwriter Robert Towne has died at the age of 89. Towne died at his home in Los Angeles.
The news of his death was confirmed by publicist Carrie McClure in a statement.
During a long career that began in the 1960s, when he worked as an actor and writer for B-movie director Roger Corman, Towne became one of the most in-demand screenwriters in film history, frequently called upon to solve structural problems and create big moments for other people’s movies, Variety reports.
Towne rose to fame in the 1970s with three critical and commercial hits released within a 14-month period: ‘The Last Detail,’ ‘Chinatown,’ and ‘Shampoo.’
All three scripts were nominated for Oscars, with “Chinatown” winning that year.
According to Variety, Robert was hired as a “special consultant” by Warren Beatty for 1967’s “Bonnie and Clyde.” He retooled the film to dramatize the outlaws’ impending doom and turned a lifeless family reunion scene with Beatty and Faye Dunaway into one of the film’s emotional highlights.
Clyde’s charming bravado comes crashing down when Bonnie’s mother replies, “If you try to live three miles from me, you won’t live long, honey.”
Director Arthur Penn was delighted with Towne’s work.
“It helped Warren play the scene, and it certainly helped Faye and the mother,” Penn said.
Although most of Towne’s script manipulation went uncredited, for example on ‘The Parallax View’, ‘Marathon Man’, ‘The Missouri Breaks’ and ‘Heaven Can Wait’.
He received a rare honor in 1973 when “The Godfather” director Francis Ford Coppola thanked him in his Oscar acceptance speech for writing the screenplay for Pacino and Brando’s moving and pivotal garden scene, a scene not in Mario Puzo’s book.
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