Roman Polanski – Bio, Spouse/Wife, Net Worth, Height, Age, Wiki

Quick Facts

Roman Polanski is an actor, film producer, and director among other things. He began his acting career in his home country of Poland where he became very famous before later moving to the states where he continued as a filmmaker. He has been wanted in the United States since 1978 for a sexual assault case in which he pleaded guilty to statutory rape. Below are details of his life and career, including facts about his love life, wealth, and what have you.

Roman Polanski Biography

It was as Rajmund Roman Thierry Polański that the actor was born on 18 August 1933 in Paris, France to Bula and Ryszard Polański who were both agnostics. Originally, the name of his family was Liebling but it was changed by his father who was a Jewish from Poland to Polański. His father worked as a painter and sculptor.

Three years after his birth, his family left France for Poland where he was raised with his older sister, Annette who was birthed by his mother from her previous marriage. Three years after they moved, Poland was invaded in 1939 and the city of Kraków where he lived with his family was taken over by the Germans.

He got to survive the Second World War and was reunited with his father who was made a German prisoner. His mother, on the other hand, was killed after she was taken to Auschwitz. Fortunately, Annette survived the concentration camp and after the war, she returned to France without ever coming back to Poland.

His father would get married again in 1946 to a woman disliked by Polanski, Wanda Zajączkowska. By 1984, the family would witness yet another tragic event when Wanda was lost to cancer.

Since he was a child of 4, Roman Polanski was always fascinated with the cinema. He always cherished the times his parents would take him there and then during the war when he was in the ghetto in Krakòw, he would find a way of watching the newsreels shown by the Germans.

After he was drawn in by the 1979 film of Sir Carol Reed, Odd Man Out, he decided that was what he wanted to do and so he later went to the National Film School in Łódź from where he graduated in 1959. He started appearing in films in the 1950s and by the mid-1950s, he had already started as a director. He appeared in Pokolenie (A Generation) in 1954 and directed Rower (Bicycle) in 1955.

In 1962, he directed his film, Nóż w wodzie which earned an Academy Award nomination. By 1968, he won the award with Rosemary’s Baby. Chinatown in 1974 got him 11 nominations and 1 win while Tess (1979) got 6 Oscars nominations, winning 3. His recent films among many others are La Vénus à la fourrure (Venus in Fur) in 2013 and then D’après une histoire vraie (Based On a True Story) in 2017.

The legendary director was arrested in 1977 and was charged with drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl. He would plead guilty to something lesser after a plea deal but it later emerged that the judge had made up his mind not to honor the deal and was ready to throw Polanski to spend 50 years behind bars. Shortly before his sentencing, he fled America for France where he is also a citizen and so there was no way he would be deported. That is where he continues to live with his family as he continues with making films.

His Net Worth

With a career that has spanned many years, Roman Polanski has come to amass a net worth that is estimated to be $45 million. The controversial director and film producer made his wealth from his work as an actor, director, and producer among other things.

Roman Polanski’s Spouse/Wife

When it comes to his love life, Roman Polanski has been married three times in his life thus far. The first time he got married was in 1959 to polish actress Barbara Lass. The marriage only lasted a couple of years before it ended in 1961.

The next woman that became his wife was Sharon Tate. He met the actress when he was shooting his 1967 film The Fearless Vampire Killers and then by 1968, the two were married in London. Only a year and some months later, Tate was killed by members of the Charles Mason family. She was killed at their home alongside four of their friends. According to Polanski, the short period he spent with her was the best period of his life and the night she was killed was the worst night of his life. On the night, he was in Europe working on a film.

He remained unmarried until 1989 when he finally married his third wife Emmanuelle Seigner. Also an actress, she is 33 years younger than him. Their union has produced two children, a daughter Morgane Polanski who is an actress and model and a son named Elvis.

Height – How Tall Is He?

Being a popular figure, there are many things that people have shown interest in knowing about Roman Polanski, even such things as trivial as his height. Anyway, the man is only a few inches taller than 5 feet. He is 5 feet 4 inches tall (1.65 m).

Also Read: Top 10 Richest People in the world with full biography and details.