The Nation: Roman Polanski's Tawdry Troubles

Even in such a sybaritic place as Hollywood, where reality so often surpasses make-believe, Director Roman Polanski (Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown) ranks as a startling character. He was the husband of Manson Murder Victim Sharon Tate, and his life has had elements as dark and quixotic as his art. He is now working on a movie version of The First Deadly Sin, which portrays a business executive obsessed with sexual perversion and homicide. Thus it was hardly theater of the absurd that Polanski, 43, should find himself arrested in the lobby of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and accused of raping a 13-year-old "aspiring actress," a charge he emphatically denies.

Guilty or not, the Polanski contretemps reveals much about the cocaine-snorting, "anything goes" sexuality of "the new Hollywood." While the movie community has largely kept silent, Polanski's boss at Columbia Pictures admits they have a "mess" on their hands. "Roman's got such a bad reputation for being a pervert film maker," laments Columbia Production Executive Bill Tennant, "he's going to be judged guilty by his work."

A Los Angeles County grand jury is soon expected to decide whether to indict Polanski on one or more of a series of felony charges including rape, child molestation, oral copulation, sodomy and providing drugs to a minor. Polanski won't talk about the case, on instructions of his lawyer, but is said to be furious on the grounds that whatever he did would have been viewed as no major matter in Europe.

Perhaps, but the details of the charges made against him, investigators say, would make the scenario for an international porn show.

Assigned in February to do a photo story for the French edition of Vogue, a magazine he occasionally works for, Polanski chose for his model the 13-yearold daughter of a San Fernando Valley woman he had known for a year. Although he reportedly assured the mother that the girl would be fully clothed, during their first photo session he had her strip to the waist. Two and a half weeks later Polanski picked the girl up in his leased Mercedes for a second shooting session, one which ended up at the Mulholland Drive home of Polanski's good friend Actor Jack Nicholson. Although Nicholson was away skiing in Colorado at the time, his live-in girl friend, Anjelica Huston, daughter of Director John Huston, was there, along with the housekeeper of Neighbor Marlon Brando.

Hypnotic Agent. According to the complaint filed by the mother, Polanski persuaded the girl to drink several glasses of champagne and then take part of a Quaalude tablet, a sedative and hypnotic agent (the drug is often used by professional pornographers to tranquilize young subjects). The couple, after some nude Jacuzzi bathing, allegedly retired to a bedroom where, despite the girl's protests, Polanski forced her to have sexual relations with him. The girl never told her mother, who learned of the story later through an overheard phone call.

The Los Angeles police questioned the mother and daughter for several hours before deciding to arrest Polanski. When they went to Nicholson's house to look for evidence, they found a small vial of cocaine belonging to Huston, and she was booked for possession of the expensive "nose candy."