Though his most groundbreaking work came in the New Hollywood era, Towne began working in the pictures as a would-be actor, starring in Roger Corman flicks “Last Woman on Earth” (which he also wrote) and “Creature From the Haunted Sea” in 1960 and ’61. He clearly had bigger plans, though, as he did so under another assumed name: Edward Wain. By 1964, he was building up writing credits in television, contributing episodes to “The Outer Limits” and “The Man From U.N.C.L.E,” and “The Lloyd Bridges Show.” Later in life, he’d return to the medium to work as a consulting producer on the seventh season of “Mad Men,” a show that by that point was set around the same era in which Towne first struck gold in Hollywood.

Towne also tried his hand at directing, and was successful critically if not always at the box office. He wrote and directed four films from 1982 to 2006, including the Oscar-nominated crime drama “Tequila Sunrise” and “Personal Best,” a lesbian-centric track and field drama that the American Film Academy once nominated on the longlist for the best American sports films of all time. The California-born filmmaker often worked with Tom Cruise, who produced two of his directorial efforts, and Jack Nicholson, who he was roommates with in the pair’s early days, according to Variety. “From the moment I laid eyes on him, I knew Jack was gonna be a star,” Towne told the outlet in a 50th anniversary “Chinatown” retrospective just last month. He penned a sequel to that film for Nicholson, “The Two Jakes,” released in 1990, and recently told Variety “all the episodes have been written” for a (hopefully) upcoming Netflix prequel directed by David Fincher.