TEST IOS_News Press Release_Polanski

(CNN, 28 September 2009)

Roman Polanski is regarded as one of the finest directors of his generation, winning an Oscar for "The Pianist" and nominations for "Tess" and "Rosemary's Baby," but he is probably as equally well known for his own tumultuous life.

Polanski, who was arrested Saturday in Switzerland on a U.S. arrest warrant stemming from a decades-old sex charge, had lived in France for decades to avoid being arrested if he enters the United States.

The 76-year-old declined to collect his Academy Award for Best Director in person when he won it for "The Pianist" in 2003. He was en route to the Zurich Film Festival, which is holding a tribute to him, when he was arrested by Swiss authorities, the festival said.

Polanski was put in "provisional detention" and now faces the possibility of being extradited to the U.S., where a warrant for his arrest was issued in 1978.

The director pleaded guilty in 1977 to a single count of having unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, acknowledging he had sex with a 13-year-old girl, but fled the U.S. before he could be sentenced.

Polanski was accused of plying the girl, then known as Samantha Gailey, with champagne and a sliver of a quaalude tablet and performing various sex acts, including intercourse, with her during a photo shoot at actor Jack Nicholson's house. He was 43 at the time.

Nicholson was not at home, but his girlfriend at the time, actress Anjelica Huston, was.

According to a probation report contained in the filing, Huston described the victim as "sullen."

"She appeared to be one of those kind of little chicks between -- could be any age up to 25. She did not look like a 13-year-old scared little thing," Huston said.