Polanski, Roman (1933- ), French-born Polish actor and director of a number of international films of varying degrees of critical acclaim. Polanski was born in Paris, but lived in Kraków from an early age. His parents were sent to the concentration camps, but he was reunited with his father when he was 12 years old. At the age of 14 he became a stage actor and, later, studied at film school.

The first feature Polanski directed, Knife in the Water (1962), attracted international attention, enabling him to move to Britain where he conducted two further studies of the bizarre: Repulsion (1965) and Cul-de-Sac (1966); he also had a brave shot at Macbeth (1972). His Hollywood career started well with a classy horror film, Rosemary’s Baby (1968), with Mia Farrow, and a thriller, Chinatown (1974), in which he also acted.

In 1969, Polanski’s wife, Sharon Tate, was one of several friends murdered by Charles Manson and his followers in Los Angeles; and in 1977 Polanski made headlines after pleading guilty to the charge of unlawful intercourse with a minor. He fled bail and his subsequent career has been limited by the fact that he is unable to return to the United States or work in the United Kingdom, from where he could be extradited. He has since made several films in English, mainly in France, including Tess (1979), from the novel by Thomas Hardy, and Death and the Maiden (1994), both among his better works. He directed Johnny Depp in the thriller The Ninth Gate in 1999, and later won the Palme d'Or at the Festival de Cannes and the Academy Award for Best Director with The Pianist (2002), about a brilliant pianist who escapes the Warsaw ghetto, based on the memoir of Polish composer Władysław Szpilman. In 2005 he completed a film adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. His autobiography is entitled Roman (1984).