The San Pedro native also wrote The Last Detail, Shampoo and Tequila Sunrise and forged a reputation as script doctor and consultant.
But Towne was troubled by mysterious illnesses that dissipated his energy to craft original screenplays, confining him to rewrites. “I was like a guy whose arm is only good enough to pitch a few innings. I could not sustain,” he said in 1992.
In fact, some of his best work was done on other’s screenplays — like The Yakuza (1974) and 8 Million Ways to Die (1986), which featured screenplays by Paul Schrader and Oliver Stone, respectively — or on abandoned projects.
Tequila Sunrise marked his second project as writer-director, following Personal Best (1982), the story of a lesbian track athlete starring Mariel Hemingway. He also did double duty on the Steve Prefontaine biopic Without Limits (1998) and Ask the Dust (2006), another L.A. piece set in the 1930s.
In 2017, Vulture placed him No. 3 on list of the 100 Best Screenwriters of All Time; only Billy Wilder and Joel & Ethan Coen ranked higher.
Robert Bertram Schwartz was born on November 23, 1934, in San Pedro, Port of Los Angeles. His father owned a ladies clothing store called the Towne Smart Shop and then became a real estate developer, and the family moved to tony Rancho Palos Verdes.
Towne attended Chadwick Prep School, Redondo Union High and Pomona College, where he studied English literature and philosophy and graduated in 1956. He, along with pal Richard Chamberlain, studied acting with blacklisted actor Jeff Corey. It was there that he met Nicholson, with the two establishing instant rapport.
Towne got his start in show business from the “school” of Roger Corman. His first screenplay was post-apocalyptic tale for the director-producer called Last Woman on Earth (1960).
When Beatty needed help on the script for Bonnie and Clyde, he turned to Towne. The writer then rejected an opportunity to adapt The Great Gatsby, opting to complete his work on Chinatown. He came up with the idea for the story while he was working with Nicholson on The Last Detail, he recalled in 2009 interview.
“I went to Jack and said, ‘What if I wrote a detective story set in L.A. of the ’30s?’ He said, ‘Great,’” Towne recalled. “The one feeling I had was a desire to try and re-create the city.
“I then had to go to Oregon where Jack was filming Drive, He Said. I hadn’t really read Raymond Chandler at that point, so I started reading Chandler. While I was there at the University of Oregon, I checked out a book from the library [written by Carey McWilliams] called Southern California Country: Island on the Land. In it was a chapter called ‘Water, Water, Water,’ which was a revelation to me.
“And I thought, ‘Why not do a picture about a crime that’s right out in front of everybody?’ Instead of a jewel-encrusted falcon, make it something as prevalent as water faucets and make a conspiracy out of that. And after reading about what they were doing, dumping water and starving the farmers out of their land, I realized the visual and dramatic possibilities were enormous. So that was really the beginning of it.”
Survivors include his second wife, Luisa, whom he married in 1984; his daughters, Kathleen, an actress, and Chiara; his brother, Roger, and sister-in-law, Sylviane; niece Jocelyn; and nephew Nick.
