NEW YORK — Robert Towne, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of “Shampoo,” “The Last Detail,” and other outstanding films, has died. His work on “Chinatown” was a model of the art form and helped define the jaded allure of his native Los Angeles. He was 89.

According to publicist Carri McClure, Towne died on Monday at home in Los Angeles, surrounded by his family. She refuses to remark on the cause of death.

Towne | AP Image

Robert Towne, Oscar-Winning Writer Of ‘Chinatown,’ Dies At 89

Towne once enjoyed prestige on par with the actors and directors he worked with in a field that gave rise to rueful jokes about writers’ standing. Through friendships with two of the biggest actors of the 1960s and 1970s, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson, he authored or co-wrote some of the iconic films of a period when artists had exceptional creative power. The rare “auteur” among screenwriters, Towne was able to convey a profoundly personal and influential picture of Los Angeles to the cinema.

“It’s a city that’s so illusory,” Towne said in a 2006 interview with the Associated Press. “It’s the farthest west of America. It is a final resort. It’s a location where people go to make their aspirations a reality. “And they’re always disappointed.”

Towne, known in Hollywood for his prominent brow and long beard, won an Academy Award for “Chinatown” and was nominated for three more, including “The Last Detail,” “Shampoo,” and “Greystoke.” In 1997, the Writers Guild of America honored him with a lifetime achievement award.

“His life, like the characters he created, was incisive, iconoclastic and entirely (original),” quoted “Shampoo” actor Lee Grant on the television show X.

Towne’s success came after a long career in television, including roles in “The Man from U.N.C.L.E” and “The Lloyd Bridges Show,” as well as low-budget films for “B” producer Roger Corman. In a classic show business scenario, he partly owes his breakthrough to his psychiatrist, who introduced him to Beatty, another patient. As Beatty worked on “Bonnie and Clyde,” he brought Towne to revise the Robert Benton-David Newman script and had him on set while the film was shot in Texas.

Towne’s contributions to the famous crime picture “Bonnie and Clyde,” released in 1967, went unacknowledged, and he was a popular ghostwriter for many years. He worked on “The Godfather,” “The Parallax View,” and “Heaven Can Wait,” among others, and described himself as a “relief pitcher who could come in for an inning but not pitch the entire game.” However, Towne was named in Nicholson’s macho “The Last Detail” and Beatty’s erotic comedy “Shampoo” and was immortalized in “Chinatown,” a 1974 thriller set during the Great Depression.

“Chinatown” was directed by Roman Polanski and stars Nicholson as J.J. “Jake” Gittes, a private investigator assigned to track down Evelyn Mulwray’s husband. The spouse is the chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and Gittes becomes entangled in a catastrophic spiral of corruption and violence led by Evelyn’s brutal father, Noah Cross (John Huston).

Towne, influenced by Raymond Chandler’s fiction, revived the danger and ambiance of a classic Los Angeles film noir but set Gittes’ convoluted quest against a wider, more sinister backdrop of Southern California. Clues gather into a timeless detective story that leads helplessly to tragedy, summed up by one of the most repeated lines in film history, words of gloomy fatalism delivered to a distraught Gittes by his partner Lawrence Walsh (Joe Mantell): “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.”

Towne’s script has long been a mainstay of filmwriting workshops, but it also teaches how movies are made and the dangers of attributing any film to a single point of view. He admits to working closely with Polanski as they revised and tightened the story and arguing fiercely with the director about the film’s despairing ending, which Polanski pushed for and Towne later agreed was the right choice.

However, the notion originated with Towne, who passed down the opportunity to adapt “The Great Gatsby” for the cinema to work on “Chinatown,” which was inspired in part by Carey McWilliams’ 1946 book “Southern California: An Island on the Land.”

“There was a chapter called ‘Water, water, water,’ which was a revelation for me. In 2009, he told The Hollywood Reporter, “And I thought, ‘Why not do a picture about a crime right in front of everybody’?”

“Instead of a jewel-encrusted falcon, make it something as common as water faucets, and create a conspiracy out of it. And after reading about what they were doing, dumping water and starving farmers, I knew there were immense visual and dramatic potential.”

The backstory of “Chinatown” has become a kind of detective story, explored in producer Robert Evans’ memoir, “The Kid Stays in the Picture”; in Peter Biskind’s “East Riders, Raging Bulls,” a history of 1960s-1970s Hollywood; and Sam Wasson’s “The Big Goodbye,” which is entirely dedicated to “Chinatown.” In “The Big Goodbye,” released in 2020, Wasson claimed that Towne received substantial assistance from a ghostwriter, former college buddy Edward Taylor. According to “The Big Goodbye,” for which Towne declined to be interviewed, Taylor did not seek credit for the picture since his “friendship with Robert” was more important.

Wasson also wrote that the movie’s famous concluding phrase came from a vice detective who told Towne that crimes in Chinatown were rarely prosecuted.

“Robert Towne once said that Chinatown is a state of mind,” Wasson wrote in an email. “Not just a location on a map in Los Angeles, but a state of complete awareness almost identical to blindness. Dreaming you’re in paradise and waking up in the dark—that’s Chinatown. Thinking you’ve got it figured out and then discovering you’re dead – that’s Chinatown.”

After the mid-1970s, the studios gained power, and Towne’s reputation dwindled. His directorial efforts, such as “Personal Best” and “Tequila Sunrise,” yielded mixed success. “The Two Jakes,” the long-awaited sequel to “Chinatown,” was a commercial and critical failure when released in 1990, resulting in a temporary estrangement between Towne and Nicholson.

Towne | Variety Image

Robert Towne, Oscar-Winning Writer Of ‘Chinatown,’ Dies At 89

Around the same time, he agreed to work on a film far removed from the 1970s’ art-house goals, the Don Simpson-Jerry Bruckheimer production “Days of Thunder,” starring Tom Cruise as a racing car driver and Robert Duvall as his crew chief. The 1990 film was notoriously over budget and critically derided, despite its admirers, including Quentin Tarantino and other racing enthusiasts. And Towne’s script popularized a word used by Duvall when Cruise complains that another automobile hit him: “He didn’t slam into you, he didn’t bump you, he didn’t nudge you.” He rubbed you.

“And rubbin,′ son, is racin.'”

Towne later collaborated with Cruise on “The Firm” and the first two “Mission: Impossible” films. His most recent film, “Ask the Dust,” a Los Angeles narrative he wrote and directed, was released in 2006. Towne married twice, the second time to Luisa Gaule, and they had two children. His brother, Roger Towne, also authored scripts, with credits including “The Natural.”

Towne was born Robert Bertram Schwartz in Los Angeles and moved to San Pedro when his father’s clothes shop failed due to the Great Depression. (His father changed the family’s name to Towne). He had always enjoyed writing and was encouraged to work in film by the vicinity of the Warner Bros. Theater and by reading critic James Agee. Towne had worked on a tuna boat and frequently discussed its impact.

“I’ve identified fishing with writing in my mind to the extent that each script is like a trip that you’re taking — and you are fishing,” he told the Writers Guild Association in 2013. “Sometimes they both require an act of faith… Sometimes it’s just faith that keeps you going, because you’re thinking, “God damn it, nothing—not a bite today.” “Nothing is happening.

SOURCE – (AP)

ABC was struggling to find hits in 2004 when it introduced two of them: “Desperate Housewives,” a new take on a primetime soap opera, and “Lost,” a sci-fi-tinged mystery that quickly became a fan sensation, from its cryptic numbers to what happened to that crashed plane and its passengers.

Of the two, however, it was “Lost” that fundamentally changed television and the relationship between the creative talent behind TV shows and the networks that carried them, fueling what could be called the novelization of television – not in the way the series began, but in how it concluded in 2010.

The roots of this may be traced back several years, when the show’s chief producers, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, realized that the twisting, mysterious series’ ratings were beginning to suffer due to viewers’ open-ended commitment. Fans wanted to know when they would get some answers.

Lost | LA Times Image

‘Lost’ Found The Path To An Equation That Changed The Future Of TV

At their request, in what Variety dubbed a “paradigm-shifting play,” ABC enabled them to establish a definitive end date for the series, ordering 48 episodes over three seasons to finish the story.

The declaration showed that the series was building toward something, that a payoff awaited those who had invested so much time – and graduate-school-level thought and analysis – in the show and its meaning.

Until then, the dominant wisdom in television was if it isn’t broken, don’t repair it. The series aired until the public stopped watching them, not when the creators said so, as if they were authors nearing the end of their story.

“I think for story-based shows like ‘Lost,’ as opposed to franchise-based shows like ‘ER’ or ‘CSI,’ the audience wants to know when the story is going to be over,” Cuse stated at the time, spelling out the novel comparison by adding, “When J.K. Rowling announced there would be seven ‘Harry Potter’ books, it gave the readers a clear sense of exactly what their investment would be. We encourage our readers to do the same.”

Producer J.J. Abrams, who co-created the series with Lindelof and Jeffrey Lieber, described the move as “the right choice,” praising ABC for having “real foresight and guts to make a call like this.”

Since then, a new type of television has arisen and taken root, providing creative talent more freedom to determine the shelf life of their stories. This has included the rise of limited series that promise closure and finality, resulting in distinct beginning and finish arcs.

Others followed suit, including “Game of Thrones,” with its two-season finale, “Stranger Things,” and, most recently, “The Boys,” which revealed that the superhero satire’s fifth season will conclude the plot.

That equation has made television richer, more ambitious, and capable of dealing with various types of serialized storytelling.

In the immediate aftermath, the children of “Lost” profited from that thirst, as networks ordered additional programs with mysteries baked in, even if few of them lived up to their promise.

Tellingly, even “Lost” didn’t nail the landing, producing a finale that answered many of its issues yet felt unsatisfying in its conclusion. Knowing when to stop is different from knowing how.

Lost | CNN Image

‘Lost’ Found The Path To An Equation That Changed The Future Of TV

However, the show’s legacy was already assured by that point. Bringing things full circle, all 121 episodes of the show are now available on Netflix, where they may be rediscovered – and binged in a more concentrated manner – by people who don’t have to wait years to find out how it all ends. Welcome to the 2020s.

The “Lost” finale may not have delivered an ending worthy of all the anticipation. By then, however, it had served to steer television toward a new style of storytelling, which, regardless of the numbers (for the record, 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42), maybe the formula that is most important.

SOURCE – (CNN)

Ann Wilson of Heart says she has “much more to sing” but is taking time off to care for her health.

The “Barracuda” singer, 74, said on X on Tuesday that she recently underwent surgery and “as it turns out, (it) was cancerous.”

Wilson | Fox News Image

Ann Wilson Of Heart Reveals Cancer Diagnosis And Is Undergoing Chemotherapy, Postpones Rest Of 2024 Concerts

She informed followers that the treatment was successful and she is feeling fantastic, “but my doctors are now advising me to undergo a course of preventative chemotherapy, which I have decided to do.”

Wilson stated that her doctors had instructed her to “take the rest of the year away from the stage in order to fully recover.”

The band, which included Wilson and her sister Nancy, was amid their “Royal Flush Tour,” which was expected to go until mid-December.

Ann Wilson Of Heart Reveals Cancer Diagnosis And Is Undergoing Chemotherapy, Postpones Rest Of 2024 Concerts

Concert dates have been postponed, but Wilson informed ticket holders that her team “is getting those details sorted & we’ll let you know the plan as soon as we can.”

Wilson announced, “I fully plan to be back on stage in 2025,” adding, “This is only a pause. “I have much more to sing.”

SOURCE – CNN