Early life Polański was born in Paris, France as Rajmund Roman Liebling to Ryszard Polański (aka Ryszard Liebling), a Polish Jew, and Bula Polanska (née Katz), who was born in Russia to a Jewish father and Roman Catholic mother.

Because of growing anti-semitism, the family moved back to Poland in 1937. Poland was occupied by German and Soviet troops in 1939.

On November 13, 1939, Krak�w became the seat of office of Hans Frank. The General Government surrounded parts of the Polish state, which had not been annexed to the Germany. The declared goal of the German occupiers was to make the General Government judenfrei, and to expel the Poles, that Germans could settle there.

The Polański family was therefore the target of Nazi persecution and was forced into the Krak�w Ghetto, along with millions of other Polish Jews. Roman Polański's mother subsequently died in Auschwitz concentration camp; his father barely survived the Austrian concentration camp Mauthausen-Gusen. Polański himself escaped the Krak�w Ghetto, and survived the war with the help of a Polish farmer, where he had to sleep in a cow stall. He was informed of his mother's death from his sister after the war.

He was educated at the film school in Ł�dź, Poland, from which he graduated in 1959. Polański speaks six languages: Polish, Russian, English, French, Spanish, and Italian.

Several short films made during the study gained considerable recognition. His first major film Knife in the Water (1962) was the first significant Polish film after the war that was not associated with the war theme. It was Polański's first nomination for the Oscar.

Polański then made films in Britain; Repulsion (1965), a disturbing tale of madness and alienation; Cul-de-Sac (1966) is similar in tone to the plays of Samuel Beckett, telling the story of a couple (Donald Pleasence and Françoise Dorleac) living on a remote island who are visited by two gangsters (Lionel Stander and Jack MacGowran).

The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) is the American title for Dance of the Vampires, an unusual combination of comedy and horror. Polański's visuals give the film the feeling of a fairy tale, and at the same time he continues to explore the darker side of human relationships. The director was not happy with the American version of the film, which was re-cut in addition to having its title changed.

Relationship with Sharon Tate Polański met rising star Sharon Tate while filming The Fearless Vampire Killers and during their time together doing the film they began dating. In 1968 Polański went to Hollywood, where his reputation was enhanced by the success of the sophisticated psychological thriller Rosemary's Baby (1968), based on Ira Levin's book of the same name, about a woman (Mia Farrow) who discovers she is pregnant with Satan's baby. On January 25, 1968, he married Tate in London, England.

On August 9, 1969, Tate, who was eight months pregnant, and four others (Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, and Steven Parent) were brutally murdered by members of Charles Manson's "Family", who entered the Polański home on Cielo Drive in the Hollywood Hills with the intention that they would "kill everyone there". Distraught and heartbroken, Polański returned to Europe shortly after the killers were arrested.

Also in 1969, Polański lost friend and collaborator Krzysztof Komeda (1931-1969). Komeda had been a popular jazz artist in Poland when the director first approached him to score a short film. He went on to score almost all of Polański's feature films until a head injury resulted in the composer's premature death. He is probably best known in the US for the haunting soundtrack to the movie Rosemary's Baby, but Komeda is also considered one of the most important figures of the Polish jazz scene of the 1950s and 1960s.

The seventies Polański's next feature was a film version of Macbeth (1971), which was both praised for its intelligence and criticized for its explicit violence. This was followed by What? (1972), a surreal comedy about a young woman (Sydne Rome) and her adventures in a remote villa inhabited by an assortment of eccentric, and sometimes scary, people.

The director's next commercial success was Chinatown (1974), based on a screenplay by Robert Towne. The film was also embraced by critics, in part for its skillful evocation of the film noir classics made by the Hollywood studios. Chinatown references the history of the real Los Angeles, but it also alludes to the imaginary Los Angeles of the movies.

It may be telling that Polański chose to play the lead in his next film, The Tenant (1976), the story of a Polish immigrant living in Paris. The Tenant is a chilling exploration of alienation and identity, asking disturbing questions about how we define ourselves.

Pleaded guilty to statutory rape of 13-year-old girl In 1977 Polański, 43, became embroiled in a scandal involving a 13-year-old girl, Samantha Geimer, that eventuated with Polański's guilty plea on statutory rape charges. Polański was initially charged with rape, suspicion of sodomy, child molestation and furnishing alcohol to a minor, but these charges were dismissed. The grand jury transcript describes the alcohol that Polański allegedly supplied before engaging in oral, vaginal and anal sex on the girl. (In Roman by Polański, Polański alleged that the mother had set up the daughter as part of a casting couch and blackmail scheme against him.) It was alleged that the director drugged her with quaaludes and alcohol, during a "photo shoot", and then proceeded to have sexual intercourse with her at the empty Hollywood Hills home of actor Jack Nicholson. The sister of the girl overheard her describing this to her friend over the phone, and the mother reported the incident to the police. After being indicted and spending 45 days in psychiatric evaluation, Polański fled the United States for Paris when it seemed that the judge would not honour his plea bargain deal for no prison sentence.