Robert Towne, whose screenplay for Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown” won an Oscar, and whose work on that and other important films established him as one of the leading screenwriters of the so-called New Hollywood, died on Monday at his home in Los Angeles. Read more
Month: July 2024
What Happened to the Well-Mannered Cat Burglar?
Though he sounds like a screenwriter’s invention, Arthur Barry was real. Life magazine called him “the greatest jewel thief who ever lived.” And, as Dean Jobb notes in his delectably entertaining new biography, “A Gentleman and a Thief,” Barry was a triple threat: “a bold impostor, a charming con artist and a master cat burglar rolled into one.” Read more
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Ismail Kadare, Whose Novels Brought Albania’s Plight to the World, Dies at 88
Ismail Kadare, the Albanian novelist and poet who single-handedly wrote his isolated Balkan homeland onto the map of world literature, creating often dark, allegorical works that obliquely criticized the country’s totalitarian state, died in Tirana, Albania, on Monday. Read more
