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Robert Towne (born Robert Bertram Schwartz; November 23, 1934) is an American screenwriter and director. He started with writing films for Roger Corman including The Tomb of Ligeia (1964). Later, he was a part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking. He wrote the Academy Award-winning original screenplay for Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974), which is widely considered one of the greatest screenplays. Towne also wrote the sequel, The Two Jakes (1990), and the Hal Ashby comedy-dramas The Last Detail (1973) and Shampoo (1975). He has collaborated with Tom Cruise on the films Days of Thunder (1990), The Firm (1993) and the first two installments of Mission: Impossible franchise (1996, 2000). 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). Early life Towne was born Robert Bertram Schwartz in Los Angeles, California, and grew up in San Pedro, the son of Helen and Lou Schwartz, a clothing store owner and property developer. He is of Romanian descent through his father, and Russian descent through his mother; the family was Jewish. He has a younger brother, Roger, who co-wrote the 1984 film The Natural starring Robert Redford. He graduated from Pomona College in Claremont, California. Career Roger Corman Towne originally sought work as a writer and actor. He took an acting class with Roger Corman taught by Jeff Corey where his classmates also included Jack Nicholson (with whom he shared an apartment), Irvin Kershner, and Sally Kellerman. Corman was renowned for giving work to untested people of talent. Towne wrote the screenplay for the Corman-financed Last Woman on Earth (1960), in which Towne also played one of the lead roles. The following year he also starred in the Corman-financed Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961). Television Towne started writing for television on such programs as The Lloyd Bridges Show, Breaking Point, The Outer Limits, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. He also wrote a screenplay for the Corman-directed The Tomb of Ligeia (1965). In 1981 Towne said "I worked harder on... [that] screenplay for him than on anything I think I have ever done." Towne went back to working in television when Corman hired him to write a script for a Western, which became A Time for Killing (1967). Corman left the project during filming and Towne took his name off the credits. Towne said later he "hated" the film. Script doctor Towne's script for A Time for Killing had been read and admired by Warren Beatty who asked Towne to help out on the script for Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Towne later claimed his main contributions were removing the ménage à trois relationship between Bonnie, Clyde, and W.D., making some structural changes. Towne was on set during filming and continued to work during post-production. The film was a huge success and although Towne's contribution was credited only as a "special consultant", he began to earn a reputation in Hollywood as a top script doctor. Towne was credited on Villa Rides (1968), which he later said he did as a favor for Robert Evans, head of Paramount. He hated the experience. Towne did uncredited work on the scripts for Drive, He Said (1971), directed by Jack Nicholson; Cisco Pike (1972), which 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 (1972), where he was to share credit with Stirling Silliphant but asked for his name to be taken off after he saw the film. He did uncredited work for Francis Ford Coppola during the making of The Godfather (1972), mostly the final scene between Michael and Vito, shortly before Vito dies. Coppola thanked Towne in his Academy Award speech for Best Screenplay. Towne also did some work on The Parallax View (1974) at the behest of star Warren Beatty. The Last Detail, Chinatown, and Shampoo Towne received great acclaim for his film scripts The Last Detail (1973), Chinatown (1974), and Shampoo (1975). He was nominated for an Oscar for all three scripts, winning for Chinatown. 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. According to Sam Wasson's The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood, Towne "secretly employed an old college friend named Edward Taylor as his uncredited writing partner for more than 40 years." Towne was credited for his work on The Yakuza (1975) and did script doctoring on The Missouri Breaks (1976), Orca (1977) and Heaven Can Wait (1978). Director Towne turned to directing with Personal Best (1982). He also wrote the script for Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, hoping to direct, but Personal Best was a financial failure, meaning he had to sell the Greystoke script. 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. Towne did uncredited work on Deal of the Century (1983), 8 Million Ways to Die (1986) (), Tough Guys Don't Dance (1987) and Frantic (1988). His second feature film as director was Tequila Sunrise (1988), which he wrote back in the early 1980s. Towne told The New York Times that Tequila Sunrise is "a movie about the use and abuse of friendship." The Two Jakes Towne has expressed his disappointment in The Two Jakes in many interviews. He told writer Alex Simon, "In the interest of maintaining my friendships with Jack Nicholson and Robert Evans, I’d rather not go into it, but let’s just say The Two Jakes wasn’t a pleasant experience for any of us. But, we’re all still friends, and that’s what matters most." In a November 5, 2007, interview with MTV, Jack Nicholson claimed that Towne had written the part of Gittes specifically for him. In the same interview, Nicholson also said that Towne had conceived Chinatown as a trilogy, with the third film set in 1968 and dealing in some way with Howard Hughes. However, Towne says he "does not know how that got started" and denies there was any trilogy planned. Tom Cruise Towne wrote the script for Days of Thunder (1990) and formed a close friendship with its star Tom Cruise. He was one of the writers on Cruise's The Firm (1993), then Beatty's Love Affair (1994). Cruise brought him on to Mission: Impossible (1996) and co-produced Towne's third film as director, Without Limits (1998). He also co-wrote Mission Impossible II (2000) for Cruise. Later career 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. Towne had found the novel decades earlier during his research for Chinatown, as he was looking for authentic descriptions of 1930s Los Angeles. He enjoyed the book,.... Discover the L E Towne popular books. Find the top 100 most popular L E Towne books.