In 1977, the revered film director Roman Polanski
raped a 13-year-old model named Samantha Jane Gailey at actors Jack Nicholson’s
home. The French born Polanski was Hollywood’s Golden Boy. His first
feature-length film, Knife in the Water (1962), although made in Poland
was nominated in the US for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It
was the first of five nomination he would receive. He followed Knife in the
Water with the equally well received British made Repulsion (1965) and
1960’s hit Rosemary's Baby. More hits followed including , Chinatown
(nominated for eleven Academy Awards) Then in the summer of 1968, his pregnant
wife, actress Sharon Tate and four friends were stabbed to death by members of
the Charlie Manson Family.
A friend of Polanski’s named Henri Sera suggested a
teen model named Samantha Gailey for a shoot he was doing for the French
edition of Vogue. Polanski met with Samantha Gailey and her mother at
their home in the suburb of Woodland Hills, on February 13, 1977. Polanski later
said he was disappointed because Samantha was “a good-looking girl but nothing
sensational.” Also at the meeting was Susan Gailey’s boyfriend, who was an
editor at Marijuana Monthly. Polanski explained that that the photoshoot
would be done in a private session, and the mother agreed.
Polanski returned a week later to take some arriving
at about 4 P.M. on February 20, telling the mother he would shoot in Benedict
Canyon, but, concerned with the fading light in the late afternoon, he changed
that to the hills just behind the Gailey home. When the mother asked to go
along, Polanski told her no. “He said, No, that he would rather be alone with
her because she will respond more naturally.”
Samantha said that in the first session, Polanski had
her remove her blouse and bra for a topless shot and that she agreed to do, but
reluctantly. The pair had a second session on 10 March 1977. Polanski again
arrived in the late afternoon, and took the girl to the home of Jacqueline
Bisset, who lived on Mulholland Drive, in the Hollywood Hills. They took about
fifty pictures, but the light was fading, and there were guests at the house
which caused a distraction. Polanski called Jack Nicholson’s house, (Nicholson
was on a ski trip in Colorado) on the other side of Mulholland and reached
Helena Kallianiotes, a professional belly dancer who worked as a caretaker for
Nicholson as well as for Marlon Brando, who owned the compound. She told
Polanski to come over and Kallianiotes agreed.
Once at Nicholson’s place, Samantha said she was
thirsty, and Polanski poured her a glasses of Cristal champagne. Kallianiotes
left and the photo shoot began. Polanski asked her to join him in the bedroom
and once there, he asked her to lie down on the bed.
"We did photos with me drinking champagne,"
Samantha said "Toward the end it got a little scary, and I realized he had
other intentions and I knew I was not where I should be. I just didn't quite
know how to get myself out of there. We were alone, and I didn't know what else
would happen if I made a scene. So I was just scared, and after giving some
resistance, I figured well, I guess I'll get to come home after this…..I just
kept drinking it for pictures,” Samantha said and then Polanski again asked her
to pose topless, which she did. They took a short break and Polanski told the
girl to call her mother to tell her they were running late. After the phone
call, Polanski asked Samantha to pose in Nicholson’s outdoor Jacuzzi, at which
point they shared a Quaalude. “I think I must have been pretty drunk” she said
or else I wouldn’t have (taken it)”
She took off her clothes except for her panties
before entering the Jacuzzi “I was ready to get in and he said, ‘Take off your
underwear.’ So I did and then I got in” and Polanski started shooting then he
took off his clothes and joined in the Jacuzzi. She said that when Polanski
moved toward her she said felt an asthma attack coming on (She didn’t actually
suffer from asthma) “I had to get out because of the warm air and the cold air
or something like that”
Polanski began having intercourse with her and asked
whether she was on the pill (she said no) and when her last period was (she
couldn’t remember). Polanski said, “ ‘Oh, I won’t come inside of you then,’ . .
. then he lifted up my legs farther and he went in through my anus,” despite
her saying that she didn’t want him to. Samantha said she did not fight back
physically, “because I was afraid of him,” though she continued to ask him to
stop.
In his book, Polanski described the sexual encounter
this way: “We dried ourselves and each other. She said she was feeling better.
Then, very gently, I began to kiss and caress her. After this had gone on for
some time, I led her over to the couch. There was no doubt about her experience
and lack of inhibition. She spread herself and I entered her. She wasn’t
unresponsive.”
Then Polanski performed oral, vaginal, and anal sex
acts on her. She also testified that he shared a Quaalude with her.
Years later Samantha said “A word on the testimony. I
was a terrified 14-year-old alone on the stand in front of more than 20 people.
I was there to prove two things: that the sex had occurred and that I did not
want it. I never told Polanski to “keep away” during the rape and I was not
crying.”
The actress Anjelica Huston, with whom he had been
living with, dropped by to pick up some of her belongings. She heard noises
from behind the closed bedroom door. She banged on the door and Polanski called
out that they were almost finished with the session. When they emerged, the
three of them had a pleasant conversation and Polanski and the girl left.
Polanski took the child home. According to him,
Samantha “talked a lot during the drive home” and mentioned that she was
studying “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in school. “I tried not to wince when she
started spouting Shakespeare in a strong Valley accent.” Before they reached
the Gailey home, she testified, he said to her, “Don’t tell your mother about
this, and don’t tell your boyfriend either. . . . This is our secret.”
Inside the house Polanski insisted on showing her
mother, Susan, an aspiring actress, the photos he had just taken of her,
including the topless photo. Susan looked over the photos and was upset at the
quality of the shots and told Polanski they weren’t professional quality. The
mother also felt that her daughter was “weird looking.” Samantha’s boyfriend
came over later that night, and she told him what had happened, Kim overheard
the conversation and phoned the police.
The following day, March 11, 1977, Polanski was
arrested at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and charged with rape by use of drugs,
perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14, and
furnishing a controlled substance to a minor.
A police detective named Vannatter and his partner
went to the Beverly Wilshire hotel, in Beverly Hills, where Polanski was
staying. “As we were walking through the lobby, I saw Polanski getting out of
the elevator,” Vannatter said. “I walked up to him and placed him under arrest.
I thought, The heck with this. I wasn’t going to let those D.A.s tell me how to
do my job. Why not arrest the guy? Any other person would have been arrested.
So I said I’m going to do what is right. After I read him his rights, I asked
him to take me upstairs to his room, so I could do the search. I noticed that
he had something in his hand, and he was just about to drop it. So I put my
hand under his and said, ‘Why don’t you drop it into my hand instead of on the
floor?’ ” and Polanski handed him a single Quaalude. “As we say on the farm”
Vannatter continued “he was nervous as a hen on a hot rock. He kept asking me
for the Quaalude back, so he could take it and calm down. By the time we got
back to the station house, he told me he had had sex with her.”
From Polanski view, he said “I was incredulous; I
couldn’t equate what had happened that day with rape in any form. When I was
being driven to the police station from the hotel, the car radio was already
talking about it. . . . I couldn’t believe. . . . I thought, you know, I was
going to wake up from it. I realize, if I have killed somebody, it wouldn’t
have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But . . . fucking, you see, and
the young girls. Judges want to fuck young girls. Juries want to fuck young
girls—everyone wants to fuck young girls!”.
Polanski pleaded not guilty to all charges at his
arraignment but as the trial came closer, Polanski accepted a plea bargain
which would dismiss the original five charges in exchange for a guilty plea to
the lesser charge of engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse. Polanski denied
the rape allegation and that the sex was consensual.
Initially, Polanski was ordered to undergo a 90-day
psychiatric evaluation at Chino State Prison whose results the court would use
to determine his guilt or to recommended probation. However, Polanski was
allowed time to finish his latest film in Europe. When that was done, he
returned to LA and completed his evaluation term at Chino. The determination of
the report was that Polanski receive probation.
But in February 1978, hours before he was to be
formally sentenced, Polanski fled the country for France. He had gotten wind of
a supposed conversation between LA Deputy District Attorney David Wells and the
judge in his case wherein Wells was supposed to have shown the judge a photo of
Polanski at Oktoberfest 1977 with his arms around some underage girls. The
photo was said to have caused the judge to put the director in prison and then
have him deported.
The D.A.’s office told the press “This case is about
a 44-year-old defendant who plied a 13-year-old girl with drugs and alcohol,
then against her consent, committed acts of oral copulation, sodomy and sexual
intercourse upon her”
“By the end of the trial” Samantha later said “Judge
Rittenband seemed completely unhinged and certainly had no concern for me. He
wanted me on the stand to aggravate media interest, and when he couldn’t get
that, he started to take it out on the defendant. The judicial process broke
down entirely and there was no way to trust him or to know what he might do
next. [Rittenband was later removed from the case.] I was relieved when Roman
left and the court had no way to torment me anymore. What most people don’t
know is that I was also put on a plane and sent out of state to hinder
Rittenband’s plans to see me testify in the “trial of the century.” Roman and I
deserve a fair justice system as much and anyone else does. 41 years later, we
are still denied it because each new DA and every Judge wants something for
themselves.”
Samantha sued Polanski in 1988 for sexual assault,
intentional infliction of emotional distress and seduction. Although she
assumed that they had settled the case out of court Polanski missed the initial
payment deadline forcing her to file a complaint with the court which agreed
with Samantha’s argument and said that Polanski owed her over $600,000.
In May of 2010, the actress and former Playboy model
Charlotte Lewis and the ambulance chasing LA attorney Gloria Allred accused
Polanski of sexually assaulting Lewis when she was 16 years old during the
filming of a movie called Pirates. However, the French daily Libération,
tracked down a statement from Lewis that said she had been involved with the
director for six-month tryst when she was 17 years old.
Polanski continues to live in countries that won’t
extradite him to the U.S.
