A Pole apart
Anthony Storr
Roman Roman Polanski (Heinemann £12.95)
Raman Polanski is now 50 years old. His fame as the director of such films as Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, and Tess of the d'Urbervilles has been over- taken by his notoriety as the husband of Sharon Tate, murdered by the Manson `family,' and by his prosecution, in Califor- nia, for the rape of a minor. This autobiography, concocted from tape by no less than three 'ghost' writers, is a kind of Apologia' evidently aimed at restoring his Personal reputation. Polanski was born on 18 August 1933, and brought up in Krakow. His parents were Jewish. After the Nazi invasion, the family were confined within a ghetto created in Krakow. Polanski's parents were both taken away by the Nazis. His father survived; his mother did not. The small, clever, knowing boy became an expert at survival. He cheated, scavenged, bartered anything he could steal, and became an accomplished liar. By the time that the Rus- sians replaced the Germans, he had already become addicted to the cinema — his only escape from a dangerous, hostile world ex- cept for sex, to which he also became early addicted. When the war was over, as a boy of 13 at summer camp, he discovered that he had the power of holding an audience. In 1953, he got his first break as a film actor, still in Poland. The Lodz film school followed; and a bronze medal from Brussels, awarded to him for Two Men and a Wardrobe, set him upon the path of his chosen career. In 1959, Polanski married _for the first time. The girl, Barbara kwiatowska, became a starlet and soon left him.
„Long before the halfway mark in 211 us over-long book, I had lost count of olanski's love affairs, or rather, sexual en- counters. Compulsive 'making-it' with every passing fancy no doubt boosted the self-esteem of this undersized, insecure, ruthlessly ambitious man, but does nothing to engage the sympathy of the reader or even to provide him with titillation. The ac- count of Polanski's ups and downs in the _World of films is almost equally tedious. There are, it is true, engaging vignettes, mostly unflattering, of some of the rich and famous people he has encountered. is a malicious account of Donald lleasence upstaging his fellow actors, and a ,11°ther of Peter Sellers half-murdering a rotor who had annoyed him. But, since Polanski gives no indication that the in- terests of the international Hollywood set !tend beyond money, sex and drugs, the catalogue of who slept with whom in which
luxurious mansion, or what meals were eaten in which expensive restaurants, or what wild orgies took place in which inter- national capital, becomes extremely boring.
When Polanski can't think of what to give Playboy executive Victor Lowndes for his birthday, he orders a Hollywood jeweller to make a life-sized golden phallus. Unless the idea of 'Victor's Golden Prick Award' makes you fall about, this is not the book for you. Polanski, who knows everything about film-making, could have made this book far more interesting if he had concentrated more on the technicalities of his trade, and less on the futile people who engage in it. Perhaps his 'ghosts' would not let him.
Sharon Tate comes on the scene just over half way through. Polanski married her in 1968. She soon became both pregnant and sexually repellent to him. He despatched her across the Atlantic to have her baby in Los Angeles. 'It had always been taken for! granted .that. Sharon would have. her baby in America.' On 9 August, 1969, her body, together with three others, was discovered by the cleaning lady. A bad press followed. Sharon and her three com- panions were accused of indulging in drugs, black magic and various sexual perversions; and so was Polanski himself. The police un- covered a videotape of Polanski and Sharon making love. After this appalling murder, Polanski found it difficult to work for a while, but 'I started to have sex again quite soon — perhaps a month after Sharon's death.' He still thinks of her when he dials the L.A. code, packs a suitcase, or gets his hair cut.
When the Manson 'family' are finally ap- prehended, Polanski, a keen skier, goes off to Switzerland. 'One couldn't spend long in Gstaad without becoming aware that it was the finishing school capital of the world'; and Polanski is soon waiting outside such a school in his car in order to pick up the more adventurous pupils who are prepared
to climb out at night and play 'a fleeting but therapeutic role in my life... What did we have in common? That's a question I'm often asked. I've never tried to analyse such questions closely.' His interest in teenagers prompted him to suggest that a series of photographs of adolescent girls would be a good feature for Vogue. 'I proposed to show girls as they really were these days sexy, pert and thoroughly human.' But he went too far with one 14-year-old whom he was photographing, was arrested, and in- dicted by a Grand Jury for a variety of il- legalities, including sodomy and rape by the use of drugs. In prison, his extraordinary capacity for survival did not desert him; and, when he was out, he fled the country and raised enough money to make Tess of the d'Urbervilles.
This book is carefully contrived as an `honest confession' designed to enlist our sympathy. Polanski writes: 'I am widely regarded as an evil, profligate dwarf. My friends — and the women in my life know better.' Since I am neither a woman nor a friend, but merely a reviewer, I am content to go along with the opinion of the majority.
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