Oscar-Winning Screenwriter Robert Towne Dies At 89

Oscar-winning screenwriter Robert Towne dies at an age of 89 at his home in Los Angeles.

The information about his death was confirmed by Carrie McClure, Publicist.

He began his career as an actor and writer in 1960s, where he worked for B-movie director Roger Corman. Towne here gained fame and became one of the most sought-after script doctors in movie history, frequently called upon to solve structural problems and create great moments for other people’s films, reports ‘Variety’.

Also Read: Mithun Chakraborty was insecure about his complexion: Shabana Azmi

Towne came to limelight in the 1970s with three critical and commercial hits released within a period of 14-months: ‘The Last Detail’, ‘Chinatown’, and ‘Shampoo’.

The three screenplays nominated in Oscar, with ‘Chinatown’ winning in its year.

According to Variety, Robert gets the job as a “special consultant” by Warren Beatty for the 1967 film ‘Bonnie and Clyde’. He restructured the movie to emphasize the outlaws’ impending doom and transformed a inert family reunion scene with Beatty and Faye Dunaway into one of the film’s emotional highlights.

Clyde’s charming bravado falls flat when Bonnie’s mother responds, “You try to live three miles from me and you won’t live long, honey.”

Director Arthur Penn praised Towne’s contributions.

“It helped Warren play the scene, and it certainly helped Faye and the mother,” Penn said.

Though most of Towne’s script doctoring went uncredited — such as in ‘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 scripting the touching and pivotal Pacino-Brando garden scene, a scene not in Mario Puzo’s book.