French film director, noted in France and America for works that include “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Chinatown.” He won an Oscar nomination for best foreign film for “Knife in the Water,” 1963, and another nomination for “Tess,” 1980. His second wife, actress Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered by members of the Charles Manson cult-family. His shocking sexual episode with a 13-year-old girl in 1977 left him unable to return to the U.S. when he fled before sentencing.
Polanski’s dad, Ryszard, was a Jewish émigré from Poland whose charm and vitality won the affections of a beautiful, married Russian half-Jewess named Bula Katz. She left her husband for Ryszard a year before Polanski’s birth. In 1936, when he was three, the family returned to his dad’s native Krakow, Poland and established a small plastics manufacturing concern. Three years later, just a few weeks after he entered school, Hitler’s forces stormed the Polish border. Polanski didn’t see another classroom for six years.
Living in the Polish Jewish ghetto was harsh. Polanski’s mom was taken to prison camp and he and his father moved from place to place. Before he was ten, his dad was seized, leaving the boy on his own. Polanski stayed with host families out in the country. One, a Catholic family, successfully passed him off as a Catholic because he didn’t look Jewish. With the war over, Polanski, now 11, returned to Krakow where he was reunited with an uncle. He lived with a dozen people in two rooms. Family members say he could never compromise with a family life. He lacked manners, was aggressive and loud, with an insatiable need to be the center of attention. Ever boyish, the diminutive Polanski stands just a few inches over 5′ tall. Several months later his dad returned to Krakow with a new girlfriend and immediately their relations became volatile.
From the time he was a kid, Polanski exhibited a curiosity about photography and photographic equipment and went to the movies as often as possible. He also showed a talent for drawing and gained admission to the Krakow School of Fine Arts and later to the Lodz Film School. On 5/01/1950, at 17, Polanski lost his virginity to a knowledgeable girl of 14 and from that time, continued in his preference for young girls. Polanski’s mom perished in Auschwitz while four months pregnant prior to the end of the war, and his dad was diagnosed with cancer, dying in Paris in 1983.
His early films were mixed; some were disappointing, others a success. In 1963 his film “Knife in the Water” brought him to international attention and he gained an Oscar nomination for best foreign film. He ventured into the horror genre with “Repulsion,” 1965, with Catherine Deneuve and then a horror spoof titled “The Fearless Vampire Killers.” Made in America, his first major success, “Rosemary’s Baby,” opened in June 1968. Another disaster, “MacBeth,” followed and then the extremely successful “Chinatown,” with Jack Nicholson, John Huston and Faye Dunaway. He won his second Oscar nomination in 1980 for “Tess.” “Pirates,” 1985, failed at the box office. Finally getting closer to working in America while in exile, Warner Brothers worked with him on the 1988 “Frantic” starring Harrison Ford. “Bitter Moon” was released in America in March 1994 after waiting a year for an American distributor and “Death and the Maiden” opened in December 1994.
His first marriage on 9/09/1959 was to a young Polish actress named Basia (Barbara) Kwiatowska. Doomed from the start, he continued to have affairs but whenever he suspected her of the same, he flew into a rage. She eventually left him by sending him a “Dear John” letter. Polanski met actress Sharon Tate while filming “The Fearless Vampire Killers.” She got the lead role and became lovers. Amid much publicity they were married 1/20/1968 in London, England, two days before her 25th birthday. When Sharon found herself accidentally pregnant (she had been using an IUD) they leased a house in Benedict Canyon on 2/12/1969. Concerning the pregnancy, Polanski said, “although her beauty moved me as deeply as it always had, the love and tenderness I felt for her went hand in hand with a total inability to make love to her. We’d made love almost every night since starting to live together. I longed for the time when her body would return to normal; I failed to understand how men could have sex with their wives till the very last moment.” Sharon, who was now eight months pregnant, had been filming in Rome and Polanski had business in London. Wanting the baby to be born in the U.S. she returned to America via ship after seeing Polanski in London.
At the Los Angeles, CA home it was their cleaning lady, Winny Chapman, who found the murdered bodies of Sharon Tate, Wojtek Frykowski, Jay Sebring. Abigail Folger, and Steven Parent on Saturday 8/09/1969 at 8:00 a.m. and raised the alarm. Rumors of black magic, sex and drug orgies were in the headlines despite the fact that an “ordinary” couple, the La Bianca’s, met the same fate the following day. Polanski found himself as yesterday’s box-office hero being transformed into “an evil profligate dwarf.” It wasn’t until late November that the L.A.P.D. cracked the case, arresting Charles Manson and the members of his “family.”
On 3/10/1977, at the age of 40, Polanski became sexually involved with a 13-year-old girl, Samantha Gailey, and was held in California on a variety of charges from sodomy to rape. He was doing a photo session with the young girl at Jack Nicholson’s home in Los Angeles, CA that led to drinking champagne, taking Quaaludes, and having sex. On 8/08/1978, a day before his trial was to begin, he pleaded guilty to “unlawful sexual intercourse” and sentencing was deferred pending reports by a probation officer and two psychiatrists. A few months later when the reports all came back sympathetic to Polanski, Judge Laurence J. Rittenband angrily threw them out and sentenced the director to 90 days in a state psychiatric prison in Chino, CA. Polanski reported to Chino on 12/16/1978 and was given a clean bill of psychiatric health when he was released on 1/27/1979 after only 42 days. Believing he had served his time and met the Judge’s requirements he thought he could put this behind him. But the Judge was still not satisfied and on 2/01/1979 he sentenced Polanski back to prison for the remaining 48 days, followed by “an indeterminate sentence” – one that could be cut short at any time, but only if Polanski agreed to be deported, voluntarily and permanently. Rather than face prison again and deportation he chose to flee the U.S. in February 1979 and has since lived in exile in France which has no extradition treaty with the U.S. Judge Rittenband, who vowed to stay on the bench until Polanski returned to the U.S. for sentencing, stepped down in 1989 and died of cancer on 12/30/1993.
In 1976 Polanski cast his then 18-year-old lover, Nastassia Kinski, in the title role of “Tess.” Another Polanski lover, Emmanuelle Seigner, was 18 when he started seeing her and he cast her with Harrison Ford in the 1987 film “Frantic.” Scoffing at their 33 year age difference, they were married in August 1989 and had a daughter, Morgane, on 1/20/1993 in Paris and a son Elvis born some five years later.
He wrote an autobiography “Roman by Polanski” in 1984.
On March 23, 2003, he was awarded an Oscar for Best Director of the film “The Pianist,” after being a five-time prior nominee. He was not on hand to accept the award since returning to the U.S. would likely result in a long prison term.
Polanski won a libel suit against “Vanity Fair” magazine in London on July 22, 2005 and was awarded £50,000 (over $87,000) in damages plus payment of the enormous legal fees he incurred. The magazine article, published in July 2002, claimed that he had tried to seduce a woman while he was heading for Sharon Tate’s funeral in August 1969.
While on his way to an awards ceremony in Switzerland, Polanski was arrested at the Zurich airport on September 26, 2009 on charges stemming from the rape of a young woman at a party thirty years prior. After two months in jail, he was given permission to leave on bail. On December 3, 2009 he was released from jail on condition of a house arrest, confined to his Alpine chalet in Gstaad and wearing an ankle bracelet. In the meantime, Swiss authorities review possible next steps including extradition to the US. But after several months of house arrest in Switzerland, the Swiss authorities released him on July 12, 2010, rejecting a request to extradite him to the US.
Link to Wikipedia biography