Roman Polanski

A Best Director Oscar winner for "The Pianist" (2002), Roman Polanski also made the seminal films "Rosemary's Baby" (1969) and "Chinatown" (1974), but his career was inevitably overshadowed by the shocking murder of second wife Sharon Tate and his statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl which resulted in him becoming one of America's most high-profile fugitives. Born in Paris, France in 1933 to Polish immigrant parents who moved back to Krakow shortly after, Roman Polanski endured a traumatic early childhood which was largely spent in the Krakow Ghetto following the outbreak of World War II, a period in which his mother was tragically killed at Auschwitz. Using cinema as a form of escapism, Polanski developed a passion for movies and in his late teens attended Lodz's National Film School. He achieved his first screen credit as an actor, in Andrzej Walda's "Pokolenie" (1954), before making his directorial debut with the semi-autobiographical "Rower" (1955). Following several further shorts, Polanski made the leap to feature films with the unsettling Oscar-nominated thriller "Knife in the Water" (1962) before helming psychological horror "Repulsion" (1965), tragicomedy "Cul-de-sac" (1966) and parody "The Fearless Vampire Killers" (1967). He then ventured into Hollywood for the first time with the acclaimed Satanic horror "Rosemary's Baby" (1968). But tragedy struck a year later when his second wife, Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered at their Los Angeles home alongside four friends by members of the notorious Manson Family. Polanski subsequently threw himself into his work, directing a provocative adaptation of "Macbeth" (1971) and absurdist comedy "What?" (1973) before becoming the toast of Tinseltown with "Chinatown" (1974), the neo-noir mystery based on the California Water Wars, which earned 11 Academy Award nominations. But after helming and starring as a Polish immigrant in Parisian tale "The Tenant" (1976), his story took an even darker turn two years later when h