Tributes flow for Oscar-winning writer of Chinatown and Mission Impossible
Robert Towne has passed away aged 89.
Towne was nominated for four Oscars during his career. He won an Oscar for writing the 1974 crime and corruption thriller Chinatown starring Jack Nicholson as a private detective.
He has been remembered as one of Hollywood's greatest screenwriters, with people from the film industry paying tribute to him online.
Lee Grant, who won best supporting actress for her role in Shampoo, which Towne co-wrote, paid tribute to him on X.
"His life, like the characters he created, was incisive, iconoclastic & entirely originally [sic]," she wrote.
"He gave me the gift of Shampoo. He gave all of us the gift of his words & his films. There isn’t another like him. There won’t be again."
The American Film Institute also paid tribute to him on X: "From writing masterpieces like Chinatown, Shampoo & countless others, his influence is everlasting."
Towne was also regarded for his role as a script doctor - fixing or adding to existing scripts like Bonnie and Clyde and The Godfather.
While he didn't get an official credit, The Godfather's writer-director Francis Ford Coppola used his Oscars best adapted screenplay acceptance speech to thank him for writing a pivotal "very beautiful" scene between Al Pacino and Marlon Brando's characters.
"That was Bob Towne's scene," he said during the 1973 ceremony.
Towne is survived by his second wife Luisa, and daughters Chiara and Katharine.
Image: David Bloomer/Paramount Classics/Kobal/ Shutterstock Editorial