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Chinatown Screenwriter Robert Towne Dead at 89
He won an Oscar for his screenplay for the 1974 film.
Robert Towne, who arguably set a new industry standard with his Oscar-winning screenplay for Roman Polanski’s 1974 film Chinatown, died at his home in Los Angeles on Monday. Often regarded as one of the best screenwriters of all time, the many scripts he worked on during his career include the Oscar-nominated screenplays for The Last Detail, Shampoo, and Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes(though Towne wasn’t thrilled with production decisions on that last project, ultimately opting to be credited under the name of his dog, P.H. Later in his career, he returned to TV as a consulting producer on Mad Men — and as recently as last month, Towne told Variety that he and David Fincher had finished writing all episodes of Netflix’s long-gestating Chinatown prequel series.
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