{"id":36122,"date":"2024-07-03T14:59:56","date_gmt":"2024-07-03T18:59:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=36122"},"modified":"2024-07-03T14:59:56","modified_gmt":"2024-07-03T18:59:56","slug":"rip-robert-towne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=36122","title":{"rendered":"RIP: Robert Towne"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/2024\/z070324rip_robert_towne.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"434\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Robert Towne died peacefully at his home on Monday, July 1, 2024.\u00a0 Mr. Towne was 89.<\/p>\n<p>Robert Towne was a writer, actor, director and producer.\u00a0 He was nominated for four <em>Academy Awards\u00a0<\/em>and won one:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>nominee 1974 <em>Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium<\/em>\u00a0&#8211; <em>The Last Detail<\/em><\/li>\n<li>winner 1975 <em>Best Writing, Original Screenplay &#8211; Chinatown<\/em><\/li>\n<li>nominee 1976 <em>Best Original Screenplay &#8211; Shampoo<\/em> (shared with: Warren Beatty)<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">nominee 1985 <em>Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium &#8211; Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes\u00a0<\/em>(shared with Michael Austin)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">After graduating from Pomona College in Claremont, California, Robert Towne decided to pursue a career as an actor and writer.\u00a0 In one of Mr. Towne&#8217;s acting classes he met Jack Nicholson (who became his roommate), Roger Corman, Irvin Kershner and Sally Kellerman.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Roger Corman financed and directed Robert Towne&#8217;s first feature film, <em>Last Woman on Earth<\/em>.\u00a0 Mr. Town also served as one of the film&#8217;s stars.\u00a0 The following year, Robert Towne was one of the stars (but not the writer) of the Corman directed, <em>Creature from the Haunted Sea<\/em>.\u00a0 Robert Towne then began to get work writing for television.\u00a0 As his reputation as a &#8220;script doctor&#8221; grew, Mr. Towne would often be called in to beef up a script, many times with no credit, but a nice payday.\u00a0 Mr. Towne moved away from acting and television writing to focus on feature films with occasional directing and producing duties for the rest of his career.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Television projects that feature Robert Towne&#8217;s writing include: <em>The Lloyd Bridges Show<\/em> (4 episodes); <em>Breaking Point; The Outer Limits; The Man from U.N.C.L.E.<\/em> and <em>Welcome to the Basement<\/em> (2 episodes).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Feature film projects that feature Robert Towne&#8217;s writing include: <em>Last Woman on Earth; The Tomb of Ligeia; Bonnie and Clyde<\/em> (uncredited);<em> Villa Rides; McCabe &amp; Mrs. Miller<\/em> (uncredited); <em>Cisco Pike<\/em> (uncredited); <em>The New Centurions<\/em> (uncredited); <em>The Last Detail; The Parallax View<\/em> (uncredited); <em>Chinatown; The Yakuza; Shampoo; The Missouri Breaks<\/em> (uncredited); <em>Orca<\/em> (uncredited); <em>Heaven Can Wait<\/em> (uncredited); <em>Personal Best; Deal of the Century<\/em> (uncredited); <em>Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes<\/em> (as P.H. Vazak);<em> 8 Million Ways to Die<\/em> (uncredited); <em>Tough Guys Don&#8217;t Dance<\/em> (uncredited); <em>Frantic<\/em> (uncredited); <em>Tequila Sunrise; Days of Thunder; The Two Jakes; The Firm; Love Affair; Mission Impossible II<\/em> and <em>Ask the Dusk<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Some of Robert Towne&#8217;s acting projects include: <em>Last Woman on Earth; Creature from the Haunted Sea; The Zodiac Killer; Drive, He Said; Shampoo; The Pick-up Artist<\/em> and <em>Suspect Zero<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Projects that feature Robert Towne&#8217;s directing include: <em>Personal Best; Tequila Sunrise; Without Limits<\/em> and <em>Ask the Dust<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">My favorite films featuring writing by Robert Towne include <em>Chinatown; The Yakuza; Tequila Sunrise <\/em>and\u00a0<em>Mission Impossible II.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>I&#8217;m also a fan of <em>Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Mr. Towne hoped to direct it, but things didn&#8217;t work out and so he had his credit changed to P.H. Vazak (his dog&#8217;s name).\u00a0 Until today, I didn&#8217;t realize just how many uncredited projects were on Robert Towne&#8217;s resume.\u00a0 It&#8217;s testament to his talent that he was often called in when there was trouble with a script.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Out thoughts and prayers go out to Robert Towne&#8217;s family, friends and fans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Robert Towne died peacefully at his home on Monday, July 1, 2024.\u00a0 Mr. Towne was 89. Robert Towne was a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17,54,57,65,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebs","category-movies","category-rip","category-trivia","category-tv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36122"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36123,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36122\/revisions\/36123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}