Polanski still dogged by US rape charge
FOUR decades on, award-winning film director Roman Polanski is still dogged by the greatest stain on his reputation – the rape of a 13-year-old girl.
Next month, the filmmaker was scheduled to play honorary host at France’s answer to the Oscars, the Cesar awards, but has now pulled out after pressure from activists. The case continues to polarise opinion. In 1977, Polanski and Samantha Gailey, 13, were at the Hollywood home of actor Jack Nicholson for what Polanski said was a photo shoot for the Vogue magazine group.
The Franco-Polish filmmaker, then 43, was already a star following the success of his noir thriller, Chinatown, and horror movie, Rosemary’s Baby.
Gailey, now known by her married name, Samantha Geimer, said Polanski plied her with champagne and part of a Quaalude, a muscle relaxant that stimulates sexual arousal, and got her to undress for pictures in a hot-tub.
He then had sex with the girl before taking her home, where her mother learnt what had happened and called the police.
Polanski said the sexual act was consensual, although he afterwards apologised to Geimer.
Polanski was charged with five offences including rape by use of drugs and committing a lewd and lascivious act on a child under 14.
He initially pleaded not guilty but, to avoid a public trial, he accepted a plea bargain under which he would plead guilty to a single, lesser charge of unlawful sexual intercourse.
He spent 42 days in a Californian prison for psychiatric evaluation, and a report was submitted to the court recommending he be given probation.
But in January 1978, Polanski’s lawyers believed the judge was possibly preparing to sentence him to a much longer prison term. The day before sentencing he fled to Paris. Attempts to extradite him have been frustrated. In Poland, after a government refusal in 2014 to extradite him, a new government appealed against the decision in the courts, but last month the Supreme Court ruled in Polanski’s favour.