ROMAN POLANSKI
Rajmund Roman Thierry Polański (born 18 August 1933) is a French-Polish film director, producer, writer, and actor. Polanski was born in Paris, and his Polish-Jewish parents moved the family back to Poland in 1937, when he was four. Two years later Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany and the USSR starting World War II during which Polanski spent the next six years of his childhood mostly on his own, trying to survive the ongoing Holocaust.
Polanski's first feature-length film, "Knife in the Water" (1962), was made in Poland and was nominated for a United States Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He has since received five more Oscar nominations, along with two BAFTAs, four Césars, a Golden Globe Award and the Palme d'Or of the Cannes Film Festival in France. In the United Kingdom he directed three films, beginning with "Repulsion" (1965).
In 1968 he moved to the United States and cemented his status by directing the horror film "Rosemary's Baby" (1968). A turning point in his life took place in 1969, when his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, and four friends were brutally murdered by members of the Manson Family. Following her death, Polanski returned to Europe and eventually continued directing. He made "Macbeth" (1971) in England and back in Hollywood, "Chinatown" (1974), which was nominated for eleven Academy Awards.