Robert Towne

Robert Towne (born Robert Bertram Schwartz; November 23, 1934) is an American screenwriter and director. He started with writing films for Roger Corman including The Tomb of Ligeia (1964). Later, he was a part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking. He wrote the Academy Award-winning original screenplay for Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974), which is widely considered one of the greatest screenplays. Towne also wrote the sequel, The Two Jakes (1990), and the Hal Ashby comedy-dramas The Last Detail (1973) and Shampoo (1975). He has collaborated with Tom Cruise on the films Days of Thunder (1990), The Firm (1993) and the first two installments of Mission: Impossible franchise (1996, 2000). 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). Early life Towne was born Robert Bertram Schwartz in Los Angeles, California, and grew up in San Pedro, the son of Helen and Lou Schwartz, a clothing store owner and property developer. He is of Romanian descent through his father, and Russian descent through his mother; the family was Jewish. He has a younger brother, Roger, who co-wrote the 1984 film The Natural starring Robert Redford. He graduated from Pomona College in Claremont, California.