Place of Birth: San Pedro, Los Angeles, California, USA
Robert Towne
Robert Towne (born Robert Bertram Schwartz; November 23, 1934 - July 1, 2024) was an American screenwriter, producer, director and actor. He was part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking. He is best known for his Academy Award-winning original screenplay for Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974), which is widely considered one of the greatest screenplays ever written. 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. Towne also wrote the sequel, The Two Jakes (1990); the Hal Ashby comedy-dramas The Last Detail (1973) and Shampoo (1975); and the first two Mission: Impossible films. 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).
| Movie | Cast | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Creature from the Haunted Sea | Sparks Moran / Agent XK150 / Narrator | 1961 |
| Last Woman on Earth | Martin Joyce | 1960 |
| Drive, He Said | Richard | 1971 |
| Revolution! The Making of 'Bonnie and Clyde' | Self | 2008 |
| Budd Boetticher: A Man Can Do That | Self | 2005 |
| Shampoo | Party Guest (uncredited) | 1975 |
| Suspect Zero | Professor Dates (uncredited) | 2004 |
| What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael | Self | 2019 |
| The Pick-up Artist | Stan | 1987 |
| Cadillac Desert: Water and the Transformation of Nature | Self - Screenwriter, 'Chinatown' | 1997 |
| The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made | Agent XK150 (archive footage) | 2004 |
| The Zodiac Killer | Man in Bar #3 | 1971 |
| Billy Wilder: The Human Comedy | Self | 1998 |
| A Sad Flower in the Sand | Self | 2001 |
| Salinger | Self - Screenwriter | 2013 |
| Rescued from the Closet | Self | 2001 |
| You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story | Self | 2008 |
| A Decade Under the Influence | Self | 2003 |
| Series | Cast | Year |
| The Story of Film: An Odyssey | Self | 2011 |
| AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies | Self | 1998 |
