Roman Polanski

Roman Polanski is a Polish film director, producer, writer and actor. Roman Polanski was born in Paris in 1933. His parents returned to Poland from France in 1936, three years before World War II began. Upon Germany’s invasion in 1939, as a family of mostly Jewish heritage, they were all sent to the Krakow ghetto. His parents were then captured and sent to two different concentration camps: his father to Mauthausen-Gusen in Austria, where he survived the war, and his mother to Auschwitz; however, sadly, she didn’t survive.

Roman witnessed his father’s capture and then, at only 7, managed to escape the ghetto and survive the war, at first wondering through the Polish countryside and pretending to be a Roman-Catholic kid visiting his relatives. Although this saved his life, he was severely mistreated suffering nearly fatal injuries which left him with a fractured skull.

The local people usually ignored the cinemas where German films were shown, but Polanski seemed little concerned by the propaganda and often went to the movies. As the war progressed he was forced to live as a tramp, hiding in barns and forests, eating whatever he could steal or find.

Once the war had ended, he reunited with his father in 1945 and was sent to a technical school, but he seemed to have already chosen another career. In the 1950s, he started acting, appearing in Andrzej Wajda’s A Generation before studying at the Lodz Film School.

He became a major success in Polish film and in 1968 he went to Hollywood, where he made the psychological thriller, Rosemary’s Baby (1968). However, after the murder of his wife, he decided to return to Europe. In 1974, he again made a US release – it was Chinatown (1974). It seemed the beginning of a promising Hollywood career, but after his conviction for the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl, Polanski fled from the USA to avoid prison. After Tess (1979), which was awarded several Oscars, his work became rather intermittent and not very consistent. However, he made a comeback in 2002 with The Pianist and almost all the important film awards were won for himself.