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Birthdate
Roman Polanski was born in Paris in 1933. -
Invasion
"His Polish-Jewish parents moved the family back from Paris to Kraków in 1936. Three years later, Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany starting World War II and the Polanskis found themselves trapped in the Kraków Ghetto. After his mother and father were taken in raids, Polanski spent his formative years in foster homes under an adopted identity, trying to survive the Holocaust. -
Escape
"Polanski escaped the Kraków Ghetto in 1943 and survived with the help of some Polish Roman Catholics, including a woman who had promised Polanski's father that she would shelter the boy. Polanski attended church, learned to recite Catholic prayers by heart, and behaved outwardly as a Roman Catholic, although he was never baptized. ." -
Reunite
After the war, he was reunited with his father and moved back to Kraków. His father remarried on 21 December 1946 to Wanda Zajączkowska (a woman Polanski had never liked) and died of cancer in 1984. -
Film career
Polanski attended the National Film School in Łódź, the third-largest city in Poland. In the 1950s, Polanski took up acting, appearing in Andrzej Wajda's Pokolenie (A Generation, 1954) and in the same year in Silik Sternfeld's Zaczarowany rower (Enchanted Bicycle or Magical Bicycle). Polanski's directorial debut was also in 1955 with a short film Rower (Bicycle). Rower is a semi-autobiographical feature film, believed to be lost, which also starred Polanski. -
Married and Divorced
In 1959, Polanski married actress Barbara Kwiatkowska-Lass. She starred in his short film When Angels Fall. The couple divorced in 1961. -
Back to France
Polanski left then-communist Poland and moved to France, where he had already made two notable short films in 1961: The Fat and the Lean and Mammals. While in France, Polanski contributed one segment ("La rivière de diamants") to the French-produced omnibus film, Les plus belles escroqueries du monde (English title: The Beautiful Swindlers) in 1964. -
Starring in a Movie
Polanski's first feature-length film, Knife in the Water, was also one of the first significant Polish films after the Second World War that did not have a war theme. Scripted by Jerzy Skolimowski, Jakub Goldberg, and Polanski, Knife in the Water is about a wealthy, unhappily married couple who decide to take a mysterious hitchhiker with them on a weekend boating excursion. Knife in the Water was a major commercial success in the West and gave Polanski an international reputation. -
Married again
Polanski met Sharon Tate while making the film; she played the role of the local innkeeper's daughter. They were married in London on 20 January 1968. Shortly after they married, Polanski, with Tate at his side during a documentary film, described the demands of young movie viewers who he said always wanted to see something "new" and "different -
The Murder
A turning point in his life took place in 1969, when his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, and four friends were brutally murdered by members of the Manson Family. Following Tate's death, Polanski returned to Europe and eventually continued directing. He made Macbeth (1971) in England and Chinatown (1974) back in Hollywood. His other critically acclaimed films include Tess (1979), The Pianist (2002), Oliver Twist (2005), The Ghost Writer (2010), Carnage (2011), Venus in Fur (2013) -