Today’s video interview features Robert Towne. His script to Chinatown (1974) is generally acknowledged to be one of the best ever written and it won an Academy Award for best original screenplay. Towne has numerous other writing credits including The Last Detail (1973), Shampoo (1975), Personal Best (1982), Tequila Sunrise (1988), and Mission Impossible (1996), but perhaps he’s most known in Hollywood as a “script doctor,” having written on (uncredited) a slew of movies including Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Parallax View (1974), Heaven Can Wait (1978), and Eight Million Ways to Die (1986).

If one needs any proof that being a top-flight screenwriter is not always a bowl full of profit participating cherries, take a moment to read this New York Times article from 1988 about Towne, as he discusses a particularly dark time in his life.

[Originally posted September 14, 2008]

UPDATE: The original interview segments have been taken down from YouTube.  Here are some other ones with Robert Towne: