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Robert Towne, Oscar-winning screenwriter of Chinatown, dies aged 89

Writer, who died in his Los Angeles home, also worked without credit on The Godfather and Bonnie and Clyde

But the concept began with Towne, who had turned down the chance to adapt The Great Gatsby for the screen so he could work on Chinatown, partly inspired by a book published in 1946, Carey McWilliams’ Southern California: An Island on the Land. Around the same time, he agreed to work on a movie far removed from the art-house aspirations of the 70s, the Don Simpson-Jerry Bruckheimer production “Days of Thunder, starring Tom Cruise as a racecar driver and Robert Duvall as his crew chief. Towne was born Robert Bertram Schwartz in Los Angeles and moved to San Pedro after his father’s business, a dress shop, closed down because of the Great Depression.

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