for over a century Hollywood has been the heart of American creativity and a breeding ground for absolute monsters and very few people embody this contradiction better than Roman palansky one of the greatest movie directors in history and a man whose crimes have left a permanent stain on Hollywood and his legacy an aour and a degenerate this is the story of Roman palansky Raymond Roman palansky was born on the 18th of August 1933 in Paris his parents were both immigrants with his father Moises lebling being a polish jew and his mother bullah being a Russian Jew she also had a daughter from her previous marriage named Anette so Roman family lived in Paris for about 3 years until they moved back to Poland to kraa at the time kraa was known for having a very large Jewish population making up about 25% of the city's demographics and obviously this was a very complicated time to grow up in technological advancements in every area had begun to morph the world into something closer to what we see today culture and art were becoming increasing accessible thanks to movie theaters where films across the globe could be seen by anyone and as early as Age 5 Roman was fascinated with movies he loved going to the cinema with his parents sadly there wasn't much room for him to indulge in his Newfound hobby as Europe was on the verge of War seeing the writing on the wall his father rented an apartment in Warsaw Poland which was a bit further away from the German border and he temporarily sent his kids there to live with his mother he hoped that the distance would protect them from whatever conflict was going to come he was very wrong on the first 1 of September 1939 Germany invaded Poland and with the help of the Soviet Union the country fell in just 35 days Warsaw was not spared first being bombed by the German air force and then trampled on foot Roman and his half sister spent their days during this time hiding in a bomb shelter luckily for them the initial Invasion didn't hurt them too much Beyond completely destroying their home which while obviously pretty awful is about all they could ask for when on the front lines of such a conflict when the dust of the initial Invasion started to settle Poland ceased to exist now split between the two conquering Powers the Western half came under German occupation and given that Poland had one of the largest Jewish populations in Europe at that time the Germans had no qualms about being very very ruthless with them the local Jewish populations were forcibly displaced and when Roman's family returned to ca in search of normaly they were relocated to a newly constructed Jewish ghetto to clearly mark them they were forced to wear white armbands with the Star of David but Roman at 6 years old at the time didn't quite feel the full brunt of the occupation yet as he was briefly allowed to return to school that is until Jews were completely banned from the education system but while he was at school his love of movies was really strengthened when he first saw an edios scope which was essentially a precursor to Modern overhead projectors he became obsessed with how they worked and as he was slowly deprived of other Pleasures in life including simple freedom of movement this remained one of the few things he had to cling on to during this very very hard time but life in the Jewish ghetto only got worse the orders from Berlin became increasingly tyrannical firstly like I said before they deprived Jewish Children of the ability to attend school and then they started confiscating Jewish fam's property eventually the entire ghetto was walled off from the outside world further restricting the freedom of movement of all of the people that had been put there at that point the only people who could ever leave the ghetto were essential workers who could only go to and from work with explicit approval from the German authorities at this point the Germans were in the second phase of trying to de humanize the Jewish population beating them regularly and sometimes much worse than that I was absolutely aware of what was going on particularly when I saw a woman shot in front of me in the middle of the street you know by a young German officer she was pleading with him in yish which I did not understand and suddenly there was a gun in his hand and then and an explosion and blood sort of burst from her from her back but not very high just you know it was like a bubble of blood and I just ran away you know I I remember that very well of course I remember everything as you can imagine it's hard to be an adventurous outgoing kid in these kinds of circumstances but Roman was determined to find a way according to him he would sneak out at night peering through a hole in a fence to see anti-jewish propaganda movies that were being shown in the Town Square even though these movies were explicitly trying to spread negative sentiment about him and his people he didn't seem super bothered by it as he was purely just mesmerized by the medium of film but he would soon find an even better way to be rebellious according to Roman he found a gap in the wall that had encircled the ghetto that he could slip in and out of unnoticed at certain times despite the inherent danger he started leaving his enclosure to walk around and experience an ounce of Freedom while also being fully aware that even at such a young age if he were found he probably would have been shot on site for years the ghetto continued to operate and the conditions only got worse month by month at a Point Moises foresaw that this was going to be the end of them so he plotted a away to get his family to safety he paid a hefty sum of money to a non-jewish family with the last name Wilks in exchange for them taking in Roman and time was definitely of the essence because the Germans were currently planning their first official raid of the ghetto during which Jews would be rounded up and sent to concentration camps at the time the Jews weren't aware of the Camp's existence but they did know that there would be some kind of raid and given that the conditions in the ghetto were only getting worse and and worse they figured that something bad was probably going to happen so Roman's family did what they could to protect their son first Roman was brought to the wilk's family apartment by his mother who was an essential worker so she could leave the camp she then returned to the ghetto having promised Roman that she would come back to pick him up and take him back once the raid was over however Roman's mother bullah would never return instead Moises came informing Roman that his mother had been taken away they didn't know it at the time but she had been taken to a concentration camp but they were still holding out hope that she was safe somewhere and the Germans would return her in reality she had been one of the first people exterminated in the camps not only that but she was also pregnant at the time but this was barely the beginning of the hardship and horror that would be faced during this time period more raids ensued shortly after at the time Roman had made a friend named Stefan whose parents had both been taken away in a prior raid at one point the two of them found themselves in the Town Square where Jews were being rounded up before being taken away at the time Roman asked a local Pol officer who was organizing the crowd if they could go and pick something up at their apartment the officer agreed and the two boys started running until the officer quietly ordered don't run he most likely did this so that the boys wouldn't arouse suspicion and be shot which there was a very high likelihood of happening at the time Rowan eventually made his way back to the ghetto to be with his father with the family thinking he would simply be able to evade the area whenever a raid happened and then return whenever it was less dangerous but they couldn't keep dodging it forever on March 13th 19 1943 the Germans executed the final raid of the ghetto during which it was completely cleared out Moises got Roman out by cutting a hole in a chainlink fence sending him off to run back to the wilk's apartment according to Roman at first he hesitated as he ran back to the crowd to see his father being carried off who apparently told him to run fearing that someone would realize that they were related and then Roman would also be taken away to a camp and so Roman did in fact leave and he went to live with the Wilks for a decent amount of time while there he could finally watch real movies again further fueling his love for the craft as the war progressed he bounced between a few other families but unfortunately he wouldn't be able to just endlessly indulge in this passion as much as he wanted to during this time he had to bounce between a few other families who would take him in eventually ending up with the bhala family who lived on a farm and didn't have any electricity so no movies for him but at the very least the family apparently treated him well at some point in 1945 as Germany was being pushed out of Poland the cottage he was living in was bombarded and he actually received shrapnel wounds on his left forearm on the 7th of May 1945 the German Reich signed an unconditional surrender Poland had been liberated by the Soviet forces sometime prior and while it would essentially become a puppet state of the Soviet Union for the time there was still plenty to celebrate Jews Slavs and other political prisoners were freed from concentration camps and for the first time in over half a decade the young Roman now just shy of 11 years old finally had a chance to breathe he was then found by his uncle Stefan who forced Roman to move in with him Roman wasn't a big fan of this finding the structured life his uncle provided to be very oppressive as a result he was eventually sent to live with his other Uncle David who himself had been a cappo at a concentration camp for a little bit of History a cappo was basically a Jewish prisoner who was tasked with supervising other prisoners while Roman stayed there for a while living with someone who had worked with the Enemy willingly or unwillingly apparently didn't really sit well with him but eventually he could leave his uncle for good because at some point after after the war Moises reemerged after having survived a concentration camp which was where he had been detained after the last raid on the ghetto he was subsequently cared for at a US military base until he was nursed back to health at which point he returned to his home city of Kau to seek out his son he and Roman soon reconnected although it wasn't a completely peachy reunion you see Moises traveled a lot for work meaning he didn't really have a lot of time to spend with his son on top of that he eventually found and married a Catholic woman named Wanda who was generally disliked by the rest of the family Roman included still when Moises eventually changed his legal name to rishard palansky Roman adopted the surname becoming Roman palansky it wasn't all bad though while Rashard was paying for Roman to live alone he also helped with his education at the time he was basically illiterate due to missing out on proper education for the entirety of the war so he had a lot of catching up to do but learning how to read wasn't a priority at the time he was also interested in another kind of education in Roman's own work words movies were becoming an absolute obsession with me I was enthralled by everything connected with the cinema not just the movies themselves but the aura that surrounded them I loved the Luminous rectangle of the screen the sight of the beam slicing through the darkness from the projection booth the miraculous synchronization of sound and vision even the dusty smell of the tip up seats more than anything else though I was fascinated by the actual mechanics of the process in particular odd man out a 1947 film Noir managed to really keep his attention its dark atmosphere and mature themes fascinated him serving as heavy inspiration for one of his later works as an adult and truly every facet of film making seemed to be appealing to Roman including the onscreen talent in his biography Roman mentioned joining the Boy Scouts one day when they were around a campfire he ended up having the opportunity to act out a peasant monologue now this is a super dated Concept in today's world but a peasant monologue is essentially someone acting out the existential struggles of the Common Man these dang bills bro the doctor gave me pills dude get off my lawn that kind of thing essentially it was just a way for people in the lower rungs of the cast system to voice their discontent with being there and through this monologue Roman discovered that he actually really liked acting and so he decided to pursue that managing to get some actual roles for example he was given a job on a children's radio program called the marry gang and before long he started performing at the Young Spectators theater and then he got to perform alongside profession actors at a festival of Soviet plays in Warsaw where he actually won a prize for his performance but at the same time Roman was still a kid and as a result he wasn't all about work one of his greatest passions at the time was actually biking he often journeyed upwards of 150 miles using nothing but his old bike which was barely kept together but he did dream of one day getting a proper racing bike regularly trying to scr up enough money to one day get one and so when that one day apparently came he was very excited while perusing the flea market one day Roman came in contact with a man named yanou Juba they talked about the upcoming bike race where Roman really wanted to take part and the topic of bikes came up yanou claimed to have a highquality pre-war bicycle a very prized possession at the time Roman jumped on the opportunity and asked if he could buy it so they set up a time to meet by an old Air raage shelter Roman also brought a friend with him which this man didn't seem too eager about once he approached he told Roman that the bike was down in the bun ER and made him walk down the steps to get it but once Roman was down there he quickly discovered that there was no bike instead yanou hit him over the head and stole his watch before walking away and acting like nothing had happened but perhaps for the first time in his life Roman got lucky after stumbling out of the bunker he and his friend chased after the man and with the help of curious onlookers they managed to stop Yan from escaping Yan tried to play things off as one giant misunderstanding even trying to sneak the watch back into Roman's pocket to act as as if he had never really stolen it in the first place instead he was booked by the police meanwhile Roman was sent to the hospital after questioning due to a concussion eventually the police came to visit him again trying to get more information about yanou at which point they also revealed that yanou was a career Criminal Who had done the same thing to eight other people three of whom had died he was then sentenced to execution for Roman this crushed any desire to pursue cycling at the time and with nothing else to do he gave his life completely to the art of acting when he was 15 years old he started attending college which he promptly left after joining a Puppet Theater instead he didn't want to go to school to be a minor or an engineer he wanted to go to school for the Arts but he still needed one year of classical education to enter drama school and so he enrolled in KRA house School of Fine Arts but he didn't last very long there either as his favorite teacher kicked him out alongside his friend although I haven't been able to figure out the reason so he ended up getting his diploma elsewhere but unfortunately things Warren smooth sailing from there having been previously expelled from school left him in limbo and even after he got his diploma there wasn't much upward movement for him that was until he was given a small role to act in a student film called the three stories where he had the honor of working with students from the highly prestigious Lodge Film School having made friends with people who would go on to become decorated filmmakers he mustered up the courage to apply for film School although it wasn't lods itself instead he applied to Kau drama school with the plan to trans transer to LS but his application was instantly rejected this was bad not only because he couldn't fulfill his dream but also because it made him eligible for the draft having had enough of War during his early childhood he attempted to escape Poland by being smuggled on a train but the scheme failed now he was officially on the clock as the moment he turned 18 he'd be handed his draft papers and required to join the military but then he got perhaps the luckiest break of his life when Andre waa who would become one of the most prolific polish directors in history cast Roman in his first major film titled the generation This Was Then followed by another role in magical bicycle which was scheduled to film in LS despite the fact that he hadn't officially entered a college when he finally turned 18 his ID had officially marked him down as being a student and so he was not required to join the military one year later Roman was one of just eight people who were accepted into L's film school and so his career as a filmmaker officially began after this life really started to improve Pro in ways he could never predict being the free-spirited young man that he was he was finally surrounded by like-minded people who appreciated the art of filmm just as much as he did the college was one of the few places where they could also readily watch foreign films that had been banned for public viewing including American Classics like Citizen Cane at this point he also moved from just acting to also trying his hand at directing in 1955 he made his first ever film called bicycle which was unfortunately lost to time after he act accidentally sent the film to be developed in the Soviet Union he only got back the first real of the movie not much is known about the film other than that it was a recreation of his near-death experience with yanou still the movie was definitely a learning experience and in 1957 he released two movies one of them being titled A murder which is one minute long and is just a man being stabbed to death over and over again as you can probably tell Roman's past experiences growing up during the Holocaust and then being nearly murdered by a serial robber definitely informed his perspective on filmmaking all of these movies had some pretty dark themes and just as he had the chance to Peak at Western culture through western movies he also got a unique opportunity when citizens of the Soviet block started being handed permits to travel beyond the Iron Curtain namely to Paris given the fact he'd already lived there as a young kid Roman jumped on the opportunity and after months of applying for the papers to go there he finally made his return to the city of love and as it turns out he wasn't the first of his Lage to get there remember Annette his half sister the Germans had taken her to the oswit concentration camp but unlike her mother she survived moving back to France before the Iron Curtain closed she now had a life and family of her own in Paris after a happy reunion with his sister he took in the wonders of the Western World experiencing all the cool new things that just didn't exist in communist countries like having multiple Brands compete to sell the same type of product much more importantly though he could see firsthand the film making scene in places like Paris and he even went to the can's Film Festival where he saw movies like the seventh seal which is considered to be one of the greatest movies of all time when he returned to Lots he had a lot of stories to tell and much more importantly a lot of work to do as he went on a movie directing spree one of the first movies he made during this time had a pretty weird concept Roman invited a number of people to a dance playing Lively music and encouraging everyone to have a good time while filming the entire thing but unbeknownst to the partygoers he had also hired a group of people to invade the party and turn it all upside down shoving people overturning tables spilling drinks smashing bottles and just generally causing a lot of chaos while this may seem pretty tame today in comparison to YouTube prank videos at the time this was considered extremely controversial with the filming of break up the dance almost getting him kicked out of film School besides causing multiple injuries the whole thing was seen as a practical prank gone way too far which honestly is a relatively accurate interpretation but in the end Roman managed to avoid expulsion after that he just kept on making movies which were received much better than his first official foray while filming one of these he met a woman named Bea who would later go by Barbara a then 18-year-old woman whom he fell in love with this was despite the fact that she was somewhat on The Adventurous side as she was already having an affair with a director who was a dozen years older than her but Roman who was around 24 at this point didn't really care they married in 1959 the same year she starred in his diploma film titled when angels fall she continued to star in a number of his movies and sometime in 1961 he began work on his biggest project yet a featurelength film called knife in the water a dramatic Thriller that told the story of a couple going on a cruise on their yacht when they end up picking up a male hitchhiker the boyfriend and this new arrival get more and more antagonistic until things eventually get violent this movie was filmed back home in Poland almost entirely on a boat the shoot was extremely difficult as at the time Bea was also cheating on Roman which didn't leave him in a very good mental state the film itself was also marked with tragedy as a close friend of his named Andre Mo who was starring in the film died in a brutal car accident a few days before the shoot finished Roman himself got into another accident shortly after where he personally sustained a severe head injury devastating as this was Roman kept working on the movie and finally it was released in March of 1962 in Poland later that year it made its way to the Venice film festival and in 1963 it got a full Global release becoming one of the first Soviet block movies to really make it in the west and won a bunch of other movie awards outside the United States to put it mildly this movie really put Roman on the map to other filmmakers and directors but simultaneously the confines of communist Poland were simply becoming too small and limiting for him he left the country for Germany in Spring of 1962 planning to never return by now his relationship with beasa was well and truly over as she was jumping from one Affair to another so their divorce was finalized at some point while he was in Paris despite his early success in the film world he returned to Western Europe completely broke and he basically had to mooch off of his friends to make ends meet this was before his first movie played in Venice meaning he didn't quite have the social capital to just get wherever he wanted after it started gaining popularity he definitely took advantage personally presenting his film in New York City with his at the time very poor English he decided to cut his speech short by saying he's better at making movies than he is at making speeches which got a standing ovation even before the movie started playing 20th Century Fox likes the movie so much that they offered to buy the rice to the film to remake it for an American audience but Roman passed on the opportunity seeing the idea of a remake as being laughable so he left the United States and went right back to Europe at first he went to Paris but as the city of London was swept by a movie Renaissance he decided to cross the English Channel and there he started working on his second full length feature and his first English-speaking film repulsion a thriller about a woman named Carol who to make things brief has a fear of interacting with men goes on a trip to Italy hides in her apartment and starts experiencing hallucinations before descending into total Madness Bosley cther of the New York Times wrote about the film saying an absolute knockout of a movie in the psychological horror line has been accomplished by Roman palansky in his first English language film it is the british-made French played repulsion and it opened here Saturday prepare yourself to be demolished when you go to see it and go you must because it's one of those films everybody will soon be buzzing about and Bosley was right the movie made around $38,000 which is 383,000 in today's money similar to his Film School exploits it also spawned some controversy being the first movie in history to pass a depiction of a sound only female orgasm by the British Board of sensors and one of the first films to portray schizophrenia although its accuracy and sensitivity around the subject could be somewhat questionable regardless of that in an age when films were increasingly becoming a way to discuss the darker and more salacious parts of humanity this was hardly an issue it was very very well received by critics after that he started directing movies like crazy making one movie a year for the next four years straight increasingly becoming a well-known name in the world of film this is where Sharon Tate enters the picture a producer was attempting to land the young actress a role in one of Roman's movies while he was initially disinterested she persisted and the two fell in love marrying on January 20th 1969 following the production of one of his movies titled The Fearless Vampire Killers Roman was approached by Robert Evans a major Hollywood producer regarding a movie called downhill however when Roman actually entered the man's office he was instead handed a completely different script although he first mistook it for some kind of soap opera after he read through it he absolutely fell in love with the screenplay and he vowed to turn it into a real movie he moved to America shortly afterward where he would start working on one of the most financially and critically successful horror movies of its time Rosemary's Baby in the movie Rosemary played by Mia Pharaoh unknowingly marries a Satanist in the film shows her experience leading up until the end of the movie at which point she gives birth to the Antichrist this movie was even more successful than his last earning $333 million or around 332 million in today's money on a budget of around 3.2 million meaning it made back 10 times its original budget by now Roman palansky had successfully escaped the persecution of his Youth and gone on to become one of the most prolific directors of his era but as the late 60s became known as the age of Hedonism his directorial work ethic was soon overshadowed by his insatiable libido Roman had already been known to be pretty sexually active even before meeting Sharon but with the marriage rumors began to spread of infidelity according to Sharon Tate a life written by Ed Sanders Roman regularly forced Sharon to take drugs and partake in sexual Affairs including three sums with women he would pick up on the beach Sharon's friends claimed it was a very controlling relationship where she never really felt comfortable speaking out and where almost all of her life was micromanaged it's pretty interesting to note that Roman described her later in life as the ideal housewife to add to the degeneracy he supposedly made her take part in literal orgies which he would record for his own pleasure sometime in December 1968 she became pregnant with Roman's child according to Ed Sanders's book he had zero intention of keeping it and he tried to force her to get an abortion when she refused he moved back to London and had an affair with a woman named Michelle Phillips this was supposedly done out of protest although Sharon still refused to abort the child after which he supposedly started treating her very poorly cruy bringing her down in public by calling her names like dumb hag and criticizing her for expressing her opinions it should be noted though that this information is mostly from testimonies made by Sharon's friends and it wasn't necessarily an accurate depiction of what was going on it doesn't help that most of their testimonies are from the perspective of being told about these things from Sharon instead of seeing them for themselves so take some of this stuff with a grain of salt still given what he'd get up to later in life it's not an entirely unbelievable story for this part he readily admitted to cheating on her saying that's just kind of the man he was the spontaneous decision in in in the life of of a man but did it change your ways towards other women I mean I get the sense from the book that it didn't really well I never I was never you know 100% faithful I never intended to be I knew myself and I knew that the marriage is not going to change me but we're not fully there yet because while the two seemingly weren't doing well he couldn't have possibly anticipated what would happen to her on August 9th 1969 while Sharon was in their Los Angeles home with some of her friends the house was invaded by members of the Manson family Charles Manson was an Infamous cult leader who was arrested after telling his cult followers to commit a series of murders Sharon alongside J Sebring Abigail fuler W fry I and Steven parent were all brutally murdered in order to start a race war and ultimately an apocalypse which Manson called the Helter Skelter they were all stabbed a dozen times each and their blood was used to write on the walls originally the police found out about it after someone had called in a fire at the residence but of course there was no fire just a bunch of mutilated bodies this death hit Roman like a ton of bricks according to a friend of his Andy bronberg Roman basically disintegrated in front of his eyes unfortunately this wouldn't stop the Press from aggressively hounding him which led him to utterly despise the media according to a later interview he had actually been accused of being a complice to the murders by some of the media well this is part of human nature I mean I was accused by being one of the complies you know yeah by even people who I I thought were well willing to but uh it was like a great uh psychological test like psych great psychon analysis I could see that everybody saw it from his angle you know his point of view and was look looking for the culprits in the area which would be somehow related to the way he was thinking you know what I mean I don't want to be more specific about it as harrowing and complicated as this entire situation already is entire conspiracy started to develop that centered around this event let's cover the milder stuff first sometime after the event rumors began to circulate that the murders had been captured on video and that these recordings somehow found their way to the public this caused a massive moral Panic which some people including one man named Alan Shackleton took advantage of by purchasing rights to a lowbudget horror movie which he called snuff it had no actual relation to the murders at all and it was simply released to generate outrage and get asses in seats the rumors of the actual snuff tapes never really developed into anything concrete and as far as I've been able to tell there's no truth to that story but here's where things get a bit weird Ed Sanders the same writer who had some not so nice things to say about Roman and Sharon's relationship did his own Deep dive on the Charles Manson family in his book titled the family where he made a number of very interesting Revelations for starters I have to introduce you to a completely separate cult the processed Church of the final judgment originally appearing in Great Britain the cult was founded by Mary Anne McLean and Robert day grimston this wasn't the first attempt by them to start some kind of movement as they had initially combined teachings of Scientology ology and psychology to start compulsive analysis which was basically a self-improvement life Guru style philosophy once they had enough customers they started the process in 1966 at which point it started taking on a much more religious flare the 25 members started Living communally in a luxury apartment before eventually moving to the Bahamas and even to the middle of the Mexican jungle where they lasted roughly 1 month what makes this cult unique is just how different their religious beliefs are while while it is vaguely based on Christianity they took a far more Gnostic approach they believed that Jehovah or Jesus and Lucifer were two sides of the same coin that effectively complimented each other and that you had to accept both to understand Jesus truly in his true form what that effectively meant was that you should recognize the devil and evil within yourself of course this caused them a fair bit of controversy in trying to stand by this principle they named their 247 coffee shop in London Satan's Cavern with such unusual naming conventions people quickly began viewing them as a satanic cult which I guess they kind of were it didn't help that when asked if this movement was basically Satanism Roberts responded that all people must become satanists in the course of their life to reach Jesus the cult never became a super big substantial movement but they were doing a decent job of branching out they had chapters across multiple countries including Germany England Italy and the US one particular chapter in San Francisco just so happened to be very close to Charles Manson's place of residence so here's where The Conspiracy Theory comes in in the original version of his book Ed Sanders claimed that Charles Manson may very well have been a member of the process church the church themselves were very quick to sue the writer and in a settlement in a US court the Publishing Company behind the book granted that the claims were unsubstantiated interestingly the publishing company in the UK where the lawsuit was also ongoing didn't give in the demands and actually won the case however they still removed the claim from further publications of the book so here's where things get interesting in his book on Sharon Tate Ed Sanders brought up that there was one loose thread in the whole case referring to a mysterious satanic cult based in England which he didn't name but given the process church is based in London and is literally a satanic cult I don't think there are many options for who he could have been referring to he claims to have been in contact with a private investigator based in Los Angeles named Larry lson according to whom this mysterious cult had hired Manson to kill Sharon because she supposedly had information about the assassination of Senator Robert F Kennedy after the cult had invited Siran Siran the man charged with Robert Kennedy's murder to a bunch of Los Angeles parties where they practiced various rituals during this Sharon may have overheard Siran Siran talking about the assassination or something you see the problem is that there's no super concrete proof that any of this is true but what we do know is that Ed Sanders did get the chance to interview Manson directly he asked him Point Blank if he'd been paid $25,000 by this mysterious cult to murder Sharon a question which Manson refus to answer but whether that's because the claim is actually true or because he was having a regularly scheduled meltdown is pretty much impossible to know after all Charles Manson was legendary for speaking absolute gibberish in between attempts at sounding kind of intelligent still that's not to say that there's no proven link between the process church and Manson at all the fact remains that the Church regularly przed in the same neighborhood where Manson lived while he himself personally denied being a member of the church it is very possible that he did in fact know about them there are also some rather weird coincidences including the fact that Bruce Davis one of his close followers just so happened to have gone to London which was the Church's home base in 1968 where he stayed until 1969 while there he worked with the Church of Scientology as for the church themselves they were definitely aware of him as after Manson was incarcerated two members reached out to him in prison seeking to write an article about him presumably trying to piggyback off the fact that he was weirdly popular with the youth at the time this brought out all the wrong kinds of attention as their ranks swelled with youths that were out andout satanists and were worshippers or at least admirers of Charles Manson in a very strange way there is one more link that kind of ties us all back to Roman remember his last movie before the disaster Rosemary's Baby well at some point after the murders Ruth Gordon who played one of the in the movie just so happened to sublet her apartment to the processed church but of course that's not necessarily proof of anything and it could be just a major coincidence as far as I know that's the only connection between palansky and the church itself and it isn't even a direct connection I will say I'm basically only scratching the surface of How deep the various conspiracies go with such a high-profile murder like this and the fact that it was related to Charles Manson obviously a lot of theories were abundant at the time and even since then a lot of people have spent speculated as to what truly went on and if there was something deeper there some people seem to believe that Rosemary's Baby closely mirrored Roman's own life and rise to Fame in the movie A struggling actor named guy and his wife Rosemary moved to a New York apartment where they meet a Satanist couple guy is convinced to make a deal with Satan to ascend to stardom for the price of giving birth to his son in some people's eyes this is a parallel to Sharon being ritually sacrificed to make Roman famous but of course one of the major issues with that theory is that Roman was already Famous by the time that she was brutally murdered and even before Rosemary's Baby came out he was already on the path to success the exact truth behind if there's any link between the process church and all of this stuff even if it is true will likely never be fully discovered but for now it's probably safe to say that most of the conspiracy theories are not true although I will say they're definitely fun to entertain and research but really in the end What mattered is that Roman had just lost his wife and unborn child and he quickly fell into to some serious grief prior to the perpetrators being found he was convinced that one of his friends may have been involved in the tragedy so he visited every friend he could spraying their cars with chemicals to see if there were any traces of blood his brief detective stint ended when the Manson family was arrested and the only thing left for him to do at that point was to find a serious coping mechanism which turned out to be lots of extra marital relations after the murders it seems like say 6 months after you go you're in the Alps and Consulting with these girls from the finishing school and so on I mean it's I could see how you would sort of try to delose yourself like that but is it wise to say so yes it is wise to say so why not why wouldn't it be wise to say so that's the that's the way it was that's the way it is you know I mean just uh different people have different uh way of seeing life and relationships it's not necessarily the same with you than me and people react in different ways to grief some go to a monastery others start uh visiting houses for the next couple years he took a complete break for work not releasing another movie until 1971 but after he had his time to mourn he did in fact get back to work he released two films in 1972 and in 1974 he directed one of his most popular movies to date Chinatown a detective film starring Jack Nicholson it follows the story of Jake gettis a private investigator attempting to uncover a grand conspiracy behind the Los Angeles water supply the film shows Nicholson's character slowly unraveling the conspiracy only to find out that the deeper he goes the darker It Gets In the End Jack's love interest and the woman at the center of the conspiracy is killed to which Jake is told forget it Jake it's Chinatown today it's considered an extremely important movie in the history of filmmaking the screenplay is considered to be one of the best ever written and pansky is widely credited with pulling all together which he definitely did do in 76 he released another movie called the tenant once again to widespread appeal but this was basically the last bit of uncontroversial success he would ever get to enjoy when it comes to discussing the crimes of those like Roman planty it's a little bit difficult due to just how graphic things can get so I'm going to have to use somewhat vague wording here and there and not be too technical with some of this stuff but there are much more detailed accounts out there for the morbidly curious on on February 20th 1977 Roman picked up a 13-year-old girl named Samantha giley the daughter of a woman whom he was friends with he had asked her mother if he could take photos of her for the French addition of Vogue which she agreed to he drove her out to a hill and she started posing for him he took a bunch of pictures during which he told her to change clothes in front of him outside he took multiple photos of her with her clothes off Samantha returned home neglecting to tell her mother about what had happened that day according to a later testimony she said she didn't want to have photos of her taken again but Roman insisted reaching out for another photo shoot on March 10th Roman took her to the home of an actor friend of his who had starred in his most successful film Jack Nicholson at the time Nicholson was away on a ski trip leaving the house empty apart from his girlfriend Angelica he poured a glass of champagne for all three of them they all had a drink before Angelica left them alone because she had to go to work at which point they resumed their photo shoot this photo shoot soon devolved as when it started getting late Roman decided to pop a qualude which was a recreational drug that was common in Los Angeles at the time breaking up the tablet and even giving a piece to the 13-year-old from there he took more photos of her before assaulting her it wasn't until later he finally agreed to take her home she put on some clothes and took the rest she'd brought in her hands running off to the car unwilling to even make eye contact with Angelica Roman wasted time talking to her while Sam was already waiting in the car as she was left to Stew on what had just happened she started crying to the confusion of Roman when he returned he then started driving her home as they're driving he brought up how he had brought photos from the first photo shoot and he asked her if she didn't want any of those pictures to be shown to her parents but she said she was fine with all of them being shown keep in mind this would include the topless pictures then just as they were about to pull up to her house he asked her to keep the entire incident a secret for her part she had no intention of talking about any of it at all if anything she was dreading Roman talking to her mother when they got back home she BAS basically sprinted to her bedroom while Roman just casually talked with Sam's family perhaps thinking that her parents wouldn't mind seeing the photos of their daughter he casually pulled out the envelope with all of his contents from the first photo shoot and together they went through it all the two parents could hardly believe what they were looking at at first they were taken aback by how unprofessional the photos looked which was surprising given Roman's background and photography but it all went to hell once they saw the topless photos in the end Roman left saying he needed to make a phone call while the rest of the family was just too stunned to do anything while all of this was happening Samantha called her boyfriend Steve asking him to come over which he did while they were alone in her room she told him the entire story of what had gone down but just as she spoke about it her sister overheard her and quickly told her mom within 24 hours of the incident Roman was arrested and his bail was set at $2,500 during his arrest he had also tried to dispose of his bottle of Quaaludes not wanting to be picked up on a drug charge strangely at the time the media was actually quite sympath pathetic towards Roman it didn't help that Angelica testified in the case by saying Samantha didn't look distressed at a quick glance it was even worse in the European press where the whole thing was seen as either a malicious hitpiece against him or just a sign of the United States's obsession with sex Samantha was called to testify before a grand jury where she gave all of the horrific details Roman was promptly indicted with six charges on March 24th including sa giving drugs to a minor and sodomy but if Roman hadn't done enough to be the villain of Own Story his court strategy may just push him over the edge you see he didn't see anything wrong with what he did but he did know that it was illegal so he plad not guilty and through his lawyers argued he'd never even had sex with her there was reason to believe that at the time the strategy may have even worked as the only physical evidence that remained for forensics was traces of seen on Samantha's clothes but no sign of sperm this meant they couldn't actually identify who the liquid had come from the defense plan to argue that the seen came from someone else which they based on the fact that she' had intercourse prior to being with Roman later the defense argued that Samantha had fantasized about having intercourse with Roman to try and discredit her perspective but things changed when they decided to do further forensic tests on the clothes by then Samantha's lawyer really wanted him to take a plea deal in order to protect Samantha's identity from being further dragged through the mud but after the results Roman's attorney expressed the director had agreed to a plea deal the terms ensured that Roman would only plead guilty to one of the Lesser charges namely intercourse with an underaged person this would have resulted in a - served sentence for him meaning he wouldn't serve any additional jail time however the judge wasn't exactly satisfied with this so he ordered that Roman undergo a 90-day psychological evaluation which was supposed to be done in prison but instead the judge decided to defer the Judgment so that Roman could return to Europe to work on his upcoming movie but because Roman just couldn't help himself he allowed himself to be photographed at October Fest with a cigar and a bunch of young women surrounding him this of course meant that firstly he wasn't working on his movie and secondly he was around young girls again which didn't look very good this enraged the judge who ordered him to return to the US and so he went straight back to prison although he was released after serving 42 days of his 90-day psychological evaluation by the end of it the psychiatrist determined that Roman was in no way mentally ill or a sexual deviant and not only that the psychiatrist determined that he had a strong moral character and above average intelligence this whole case gets really Weir from here the judge presiding over this case was one Lawrence written Bond he was a member of the Jewish Hillcrest Country Club where he regularly hung out with celebrities he was very attracted to high-profile cases including Ellis Presley's divorce and Marlon Brando's child custody battle when the palansky case started he dismissed the judge originally overlooking the case and appointed himself to it as it turns out this guy loved publicity apparently while at his country club he couldn't stop himself from telling everyone about all the high-profile cases pieces he was involved in and the palansky case was perhaps the most important he had ever worked on so important that he went on to have an interview with People magazine where he claimed the people of California were more sophisticated than anywhere else in the country to put it mildly he seemed to be very unprofessional and it appeared he had already decided he would lock Roman up for a 100 years according to later documentaries he even told the prosecutor and Roman's attorney to plead their cases directly to him after which he would make a judgment he had already pre-arranged despite the fact that both the defense the district attorney and Samantha's personal lawyer all agreed to the original plea deal which would mean that Roman would get zero jail time the judge refused to accept it telling them that he wanted to give fansy a longer sentence but that he would make sure Roman would get released after 120 days sadly for Roman this severe mishandling of Justice wasn't really reprimanded despite the media support and his Hollywood Connections many people saw him as either cursed or outright involved in Satanism so the idea of a judge throwing the book at him even if due process wasn't upheld probably didn't really bother many people as for Roman though this really threw a rock into his plans to well live and make movies so before the sentencing he fled the United States for France and he eventually relocated to Switzerland a warrant was issued for his arrest in the United States but it couldn't be enforced and so began Roman's Exile Arc from that point on he could never return to the United States lest he be held in jail for his crimes but his time away from the states wouldn't stop him from filmmaking he released a movie called Tess in 1979 9 starring a 15-year-old girl named natashia AK kinsky who he was also in a relationship with she was of the age of consent in France so it was technically legal but um obviously that's not good I don't think I I don't think I really need to spell out why he shouldn't have been dating a 15 year- old but Roman was officially free in Europe and continued making films in 1983 Roman gave an interview with Clive James a very popular Australian journalist most of the interview focused on his life prior to the incident with Samantha from his time in the Jewish ghetto to his Pathway to success in Eastern Europe we mostly just get the same information that I've covered previously but when they finally started addressing the elephant in the room it got a bit more interesting when the newspapers and the magazines and the books talk about you and little girls is there anything in it well I I like young women let's put it this way I think the most of men do actually yeah but the question the question turns on how are well yes well here you come to a to a concrete um case for which I have been behind the bars and that's what you want to talk about Roman discusses the circumstances of how he got the French Vogue assignment explaining he found it interesting specifically because he was tasked with photographing young girls and uh I found it quite an interesting um Enterprise because I like the girls of this age and uh because the girls of that age for some reason like me he goes on to talk about just how difficult this time was for him because of the supposed media witch hunt against him he also covers what he perceives as the judge's mismanagement of the whole case in general he basically spends this whole time playing the victim acting as if he did absolutely nothing wrong granted that you have this interest in in young girls and are never concealed young wasn't an incident like the one that happened more or less bound to happen eventually well looking back at it probably it was bound to happen yes but probably the most disgusting part of this is that he goes on to claim that because Samantha had already lost her virginity it was basically impossible for her to have been essayed by him he even complains that no one else she'd been intimate with had the same legal trouble that he did after a whole lot of waffling about how the age of consent in California which is 18 is far too restrictive for his personal tastes the topic eventually moves to nstasia his 15-year-old fling and he gets a bit heated here insisting that it was all okay because it was legal due to France's age of consent at the time ages ages every children or you AG is everything the law is about age not about maturity or wisdom or Future's gardom I'm talking about but in France it's 15 okay so so in France this interview didn't really change much of anything he still continued to work releasing two more movies in the 80s and a bunch of projects in the 9s including music videos at the time he was basically allowed to go back and forth between France Switzerland and Poland none of which were willing to do anything about his indiscretions for the time being in 1988 he also had another relationship this time with a girl who was 9 19 Emanuel serer would go on to star in a number of his movies as either the main character or as a side character oddly despite how absolutely horrendous his previous crime was he still had a substantial following in Hollywood with many directors actors and producers seemingly wanting to separate the art from the artist which becomes kind of a hard argument to make when you realize that he never actually denied that any of this happened and weirdly there's a lot of content out there that actively defends his behavior one of my sources for this video was a book it Roman palansky a life in Exile which basically chocks up Roman's crime to a cultural difference claiming that European culture permits such behavior and that considering palansky was always openly into young women this was hardly out of the ordinary and I quote he had always liked young beautiful women but in what he considered to be European tradition never feeling there to be any moral question with regard to such Affairs consensual sex was just that he didn't ascribe to American laws that prohibit one from sleeping with a minor what can be said for certain is that palansky was held accountable for breaking American laws and now and forever he would have his name attached to two media circus events in American history he would never in the eyes of the average American be able to live these connections Down In fairness there's no denying that the court proceedings were basically a sham trial the judge was obviously incredibly biased and was ready to be a borderline criminal to throw the book at him but no matter how terribly the case was handled there's no denying what he did and considering all the stuff he did to try and cover it up and downplaying it from telling telling her to keep the event a secret from her parents to trying to argue in court that she was a mental nutcase who imagined it all it's very clear that he knew what he was doing was wrong even if it didn't go against his morals despite everything he continued to be massive in the industry in the year 2000 he landed an interview with Charlie Rose the whole thing was kind of a Fluff piece and the subject of him essaying a 13-year-old was only brought up once what will you say when they say daddy did you a 13-year-old did you have sex with a 13-year-old did you do that with someone when your is 13 years old she comes to you and she's read this story well I'm not going to dwell on it Charlie I tell you I will tell them the truth and truth is not what you say so it's not what I say I don't say that I'm not saying that I'm why do you imply that I would have to ader to what the press or media say about it and truly look I did my time in prison That was supposed to be it on the bargain plea that was accepted by all sides and wanted me to go back I left and that's it there's a small moment here where Charlie asks Roman what's stopping him for making his best movie yet to which Roman responds by saying maybe his next film will be the best around the time of the interview he had already started working on what would become one of his most famous movies The Pianist the movie is based on an autobiography from a Polish Jewish pianist in German occupied Poland during World War II and Roman himself of course had a lot of experiences living through the Holocaust giving him a somewhat unique perspective on the entire Affair this movie was quite successful financially almost quadrupling its $35 million budget more importantly though it was laed by critics and Hollywood being nominated for 74 different Awards and winning 57 of them from the United States Academy Awards alone it received an Oscar for best director best leading actor best screenplay best cinematography best costume design and best film editing only losing out on best picture of course the amusing part of this is that he couldn't exactly fly out to the US to receive his award as he was still a fugitive from justice but that didn't mean he missed out on getting all the cheer he could ever hope for from across the pond no matter how much people talked about what he had done the truth was that there wasn't really anything anyone could do interestingly Samantha his victim was fairly opposed to people who were upset at him when The Pianist originally came out she published an oped titled judge the movie not the man where she described what had happened to her on that fateful day however she also noted that the media coverage over the years may have caused her more trauma than the event in question ever did she clarifies she doesn't really feel any ill will towards him nor does she feel sympathy for him as he was basically a stranger to her she goes on to critique the entire court proceeding from 25 years ago arguing that the judge acted maliciously in rejecting the plea deal which she had found frustrating enough to redirect her frustration from Roman to the legal system while I can't exactly agree with her condoning him it is at least nice to see that she had apparently recovered from the event psychologically she was now a married woman with three sons and despite everything it seemed like she mostly just wanted to move on after the oped she was invited to the Larry King show where she largely echoed the same sentiment she mused on how the whole Affair basically ruined her chance of becoming an actress which had been her childhood dream as the crimes committed against her would overshadow any of her achievements she also noted how she developed quite a hatred for the industry she clarified that there was a financial compensation for what Roman had done but that she wasn't allowed to talk about it in the following years she would slowly start becoming a more vocal supporter of Roman and say people should just move on from it like she did but before any of that went anywhere Roman himself was still directing in 2005 he released another movie called Oliver Twist which was not received particularly well in that same year the American authorities issued an international search request and reference to the 1978 arrest warrant Roman took a bit of a break from directing movies as he was also embroiled in a lawsuit with Vanity Fair which had claimed in an article that while attending Sharon's funeral back in 1969 he had approached a Scandinavian model and told her he would make another Sharon Tate out of her the case was eventually settled in Roman's favor as there was no substantial evidence of this interaction he was awarded 50,000 British pounds which at the time was equivalent to around $87,000 after this things were pretty quiet until around 2008 when he requested via his lawyer that the Samantha case be dismissed entirely and that the hearing be moved out of the Los Angeles courts but just a year later the whole case against him was suddenly thrown through a loop as he was flying to Switzerland to receive a lifetime achievement at the Zurich Film Festival he was arrested by Swiss authorities who immediately started proceedings to extradite him to the United States kind of unsurprisingly a bunch of people quickly jumped to his defense including France's culture Minister and even the French President although the latter wasn't as explicit about it simply saying that he hoped the case was resolved soon of course most average people were 100% behind his extradition and the fact these politicians were casually defending him didn't exactly go over well with the general public one underd discussed aspect of this was also the number of well-respected actors and directors who actively petitioned for Roman's release over 100 of them to be exact the petition reads we demand the immediate release of Roman palansky filmmakers in France in Europe and in the United States and around the world are dismayed by this decision it seems inadmissible to them that an international cultural event paying homage to one of the greatest contemporary filmmakers is used by police to apprehend him and many many high-profile names ended up signing this petition from Martin Scorsese to Woody Allen David Lynch Natalie Portman Penelope crw Guero Del Toro and Wan car Y part of the reason that Roman had been allowed to Acclaim such a high level of prestige in the filmmaking World despite his crimes was because of the continued support of him by people in the entertainment industry some people even defended him on National Television why now why now what's going I mean obviously there's something going on somewhere and somebody had to make a deal with someone for something thing and maybe there's a little money involved I don't know but why now and also the thing is very clearly very clearly and he's proven this Roman palansky is not a predator was not charged I know it wasn't statut I child maybe I'm not sure something it was something else but I don't believe it was and when we get all the information somebody else tell me in my ear all I'm trying to get you to understand is when we're talking about what someone did and what they were char with still these opinions had little bearing on the Swiss courts and while the Swiss police likely hoped this would be a quick process it was anything but after two months of detention Roman was put under house arrest he was granted bail to the tune of $4.5 million the extradition order was then rejected by the Swiss courts and he was promptly released from his house arrest but that didn't mean the accusations were done rolling in in 2010 a completely different actress named Charlotte Lewis claimed that she had been assaulted by him sometime in 1983 4 years prior to appearing in one of his films titled Pirates this whole case was honestly really weird as following the announcement an earlier interview from 1999 was uncovered where she'd spoken about her history of being abused by a whole Cavalcade of men starting when she was 13 years old when she allegedly started being pimped out under the influence of drugs in the midst of this she even recalled a meeting with some Saudi Arabian man where thousands of pounds were laid out in front of her to convince her to fly to Saudi Arabia instead of accepting she allegedly ran away among others she claimed to have been with Roman palansky when she was 17 years old he would have been around 50 at the time she claimed that their relationship lasted for around 6 months until it ended during a movie shoot in tanisia in the interview from 1999 that I mentioned earlier she expressed that at the time she had really wanted to become his mistress and that she' wanted him more than he'd wanted her this whole thing is going to develop a bit later on but for now it's time to get back to Samantha because in 2011 she gave an interview on Good Morning America where she continued to defend Roman from both the media and the legal camp caign against him I forgave him many many years ago almost immediately after it had happened so I think forgiveness doesn't uh just doesn't come hard to me and I was having so much uh other trouble in life due to the court and the media that that really overtook and overwhelmed my whole family things were much different in the 70s and I don't think I thought it was as much of a big deal as everybody else did she also revealed that Roman had sent her a letter of apology ology later that year he was featured in a documentary about his life where he publicly acknowledged that he had assaulted her at that point Roman left for Poland again where he pretty much just kept on living his life in September of 2013 Samantha released a book where she detailed everything from the essay encounter to the horrific aftermath her book was an invaluable source for details about this case in an interview she also admitted that they had been reestablishing a connection recently sending a few emails back and forth this was good news at least for Roman and it was followed by more good news for him in 2014 an internal correspondence between judges from 2008 was leaked to the public one judge Larry Fiddler expressed that they may have no choice but to free Roman if he ever came back to the us to have a trial due to the previous judge's misconduct expressing pity for anyone who had to deal with the case in the future later that year he was questioned by the Polish police at the request of the United States authorities he was not arrested though as an extradition request hadn't been filed yet the case then dragged on until 2015 at which point the judge decided once again that there would be no extradition to the US due to how the case had been mishandled so many years prior in 2017 Samantha pleed for the course to dismiss the case but this was also rejected weirdly Samantha's plea may have actually hurt Roman another actress only identified as Robin came out against him claiming that he had victimized her in 1973 she doesn't give many details simply saying that it happened in Southern California and explaining the reason why she hadn't spoken out before is because she didn't want her dad to do something that would send him to prison for the rest of his life and the only reason she was coming out now was because Samantha pled for the case against Roman to be dismissed and she didn't want his crimes to go unpunished in October 2017 even more trouble started to pop up as another woman an actress named Renee Langer came out against Roman claiming he had essayed her in 1972 in the same city where he would later serve out his house arrest she didn't have much proof to present publicly although she had gone to the police about it prior which does strengthen the case a bit later that year an Israeli journalist named Matan uel started up a website called IM metp palansky decom which was dedicated exclusively to exposing him he brought up a recent allegation by an artist named Maryann Barnard who alleged that Roman had essayed her when she was 10 years old without going into too much detail here Maryann claimed she had been at the beach for a photo shoot on the beach and that he had been taking inappropriate pictures of her before assaulting her she even claimed that her mother may have been paid off to leave in her interview she implored people to sign a petition that would get him kicked out of the academy board this allegation itself came pretty close to the creation of matan's website and he pushed it out front in Center he went over all the things Roman actively admitted to including his attraction to teenage girls which he had described in his biography where he describes teenagers as mature and says that in those interactions they're the ones who have power over him not the other way around Roman also very casually remarks how he had had contact with multiple women between the ages of 16 and 19 while he was under house arrest in swi land the website also links to a statement made by Roman during a 1979 interview where he said that the only reason his case had so much attention from the Press was because everyone including the judges and the jury were jealous of what he did with young girls on top of that Matan was also encouraging other women to come forward with their stories supposedly offering $20,000 per allegation although I haven't been able to find any direct evidence of that claim Roman got very upset over the creation of this website and he decided to sue Matan for slander after maton had claimed to the press that Roman had essayed five different girls Matan was not intimidated though and he quickly counter sued Roman for 200,000 Israeli dollars or about 55,000 USD after a relatively brief Court proceeding Roman probably realized he wasn't going to get much out of this endeavor withdrawing from the lawsuit entirely because of that the judge ended up rewarding maton a substantially lesser sum than originally demanded coming up to about 20,000 Israeli dollars or 5,000 USD losing that lawsuit looked bad enough but it extended well beyond that as the loss coincided with a huge change in sentiment across the United States whereas Hollywood Elites had readily defended him before the rise of me too led to a lot more attention on Hollywood misconduct as a result of this Roman was expelled from the Oscars Academy alongside Bill Cosby due to popular demand there were also boycotts directed at his upcoming movie although they didn't manage to prevent it from releasing in theaters Roman wouldn't take this lying down he tried to sue the Academy Awards to both both allow him back in and to cover the financial losses caused by the decision this lawsuit went exactly nowhere as the judge upheld the Academy's decision arguing he had been given a fair chance to plead his case and had done so unsuccessfully funnily enough Roman's lawyer also talked about the case arguing that this was just another example of Los Angeles judges sticking together and that because Academy membership was worthless they didn't even consider appealing the decision this would later turn out to be a complete lie in November of 2019 another Accuser this time a French actress named Valentine Monier came out against him claiming he had essayed her back in 1975 when she was 18 years old she describes how her and her friends agreed to go skiing at his Chalet one night he allegedly called her over and violently had his way with her supposedly beating her and ripping her clothes off through his attorney Roman strongly denied this accusation at this point Roman was practically fuming in 2019 he gave two interviews one with a French News company and another with a Polish news company where he launched an emphatic defense of his character in the French interview he talks about what happened with Samantha and while acknowledging that what he did was bad he still makes excuses like highlighting the facts that it had been almost 50 years ago he speaks a little about the whole # me2 movement as well claiming that Harvey Weinstein was actually the reason all this controversy was being brought against him due to the fact that Weinstein had wanted to undercut The Pianist and stop it from winning an Academy Award implying that it was his fault people had started calling him a degenerate creep the interview also discusses his relationship with nstasia when she was 15 years old and he simply defends it by claiming that it was consensual claiming that they were still friends the topic of his other accusers was brought up as well regarding Charlotte Lewis he highlighted the 1999 interview where she said that she wanted to be his mistress Charlotte has since come out and claimed these statements were taken out of context and when the interviewer brought this up Roman highlighted how she'd spoken positively about him on other occasions in my eyes speaking well of him at some point doesn't necessarily dis prove that something negative happened previously I mean just look at how many people were friends with Weinstein before throwing him under the bus it's also worth noting that he never denied having intercourse with her the topic then shifts to Renee Langer he doesn't say much here simply calling the whole thing nonsense lastly he talks about Maryann Barnard who claimed he had essayed her when she was 10 years old where he mostly does the same thing although he does make one good point questioning why her mother who had supposedly sold out her pre-teen daughter to him was allowed to teach last he talks about Valentine Monier once again claiming the whole story was absurd and he takes particular offense to the idea that he would ever beat women as for the Polish interview things went largely the same with a few extra additions they discussed the fact that students from luds where he had studied were collecting signatures for a petition that was supposed to ban him from ever returning to the college which he unsurprisingly didn't agree with a lot of the interview has also spent talking about his childhood his experience living under German occupation the Jewish ghetto losing his mother in owitz ETC he also took some time to promote his new movie while Roman's performance during both of these interviews wasn't as bad as it could have been it didn't exactly move the needle on people's opinion of him it's not like a few words could ever Salvage his reputation after all because the worst claim against him was provably true but from within the industry a few small cracks were starting to show in 2020 he received an award from the French film Academy to which an actress stood up and left the auditorium in protest her statement here roughly translates to good job pedophile since then he's sort of been on the back foot in the latter half of 2020 he actually appealed the decision to be thrown out of the academy banking on his clout and the fact he was earning awards for directing back in Europe including four French Academy Awards I couldn't find anything about the lawsuit but as far as I can tell it hasn't gone anywhere overall the last few years haven't been too kind to him he still wanted to continue directing and in 2021 he announced he was working on a brand new movie which would later be called The Palace it hasn't been received well receiving a dismal 10% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes and yet one thing that stayed consistent for at least the past two decades is that he could always rely on Samantha to back him up since 2019 she had gone on public interviews where while always open about the abuse she had suffered she always just goes back to wanting things to be resolved defending Roman at every opportunity she gets in 2023 she even visited him personally and took photos of them smiling together as some of the sa cases that had been brought up against him were now going to be officially litigated in June 20123 Robin now identified as Jane Doe expanded her initial claim saying she had been essayed in 1973 while at his Benedict Canyon home allegedly she met palansky at a party months earlier and he invited her to dinner poured her some tequila and drove her to his house where she passed out when she woke up he was allegedly lying next to her before trying to solicit her for SE to which she refused though she was unsuccessful in rebuffing him just to refresh her memory on this particular case her earlier testimony suggests that this happened when she was 16 the lawsuit would drag on for around a year in the meantime Roman was sued again this time by Charlotte although not for the reasons you might think she sued him for defamation arguing that him bringing up the older 1999 interview in his statements constituted slander because she had been taken out of context she then took the time to argue that discrediting and defaming people was part of his repertoire in trying to defend himself because of French law he was automatically charged by the prosecutor In fairness there may have been some truth to the 1999 publication being tampered with the original publisher News of the World had often been accused of Lial and fabricating quotes and was forced to close in 2011 after its employees were accused of hacking into people's phones to get stories but while her complaint may have been valid proving that Roman had maliciously lied was a lot more difficult following a two-month Court proceeding the original writer of the article was brought in for questioning he explained that he had interviewed her twice after the paper paid 30,000 British pounds for it and he argued that the vice girl angle had been agreed upon by both of them although he admitted he couldn't remember if she had reviewed the article prior to publishing in the end the court sided with Roman a few months later the robin case was also resolved in which it seems a settlement was reached as we don't have any further details about whether or not some kind of payment was made but it seems like both parties are keeping quiet about it for now you see in 2025 he was supposed to go on trial but the two parties decided to reach that settlement instead which in the words of the lawyer was mutually satisfactory I'm not really sure what that says about the case but it makes her claim seem slightly more legitimate than any of the other people accusing him but the lawsuits still weren't over Charlotte came back and appealed the Court's decision though this time without the French prosecution on her side she even tried to recoup the money she spent on lawyers but she didn't get anything out of it as the Paris appeals court upheld their original decision Roman palansky is no stranger to tragedy surviving the Holocaust would have broken a weaker man and the fact that he built such a successful career despite all of the hardship he suffered early on is very very remarkable and also losing his wife and unborn child definitely isn't that far down the list of personal tragedies he's also undoubtedly one of the most important filmmakers of the last half century but of course a difficult life and the Triumph of his career cannot excuse his behavior there's no ambiguity here this is not an allegation he himself admits that he took advantage of a 13-year-old as a grown man and he was so unbothered by it that he went on to pursue other minors defending those instances on the basis of legality it's difficult for most people to hold the ideas of his accomplishments in one hand and the disgust of his crimes in the other the more you read into his early life and his works the more impressed you become the more you read into his crimes the more revolting his entire life seems you're not left with any real resolve forget Jak it's China Town I've been Turkey Tom thanks for watching and until next time leave me alone [Music] [Music]