1977: A Madman Turns 40: 2017- Day 70

   On this date, Polish director Roman Polanski was charged with the rape of a 13-year old actress/ model named Samantha Gailey. The events, which included the distribution of drugs to a minor with intent to cause harm, happened just hours earlier at the home of actor Jack Nicholson. Nicholson was not home at the time and neither was Gailey's parents. 

   I don't care if the reason the two were together was for a photo shoot in French Vogue. They shouldn't have been alone together in the first place. Where was Gailey's mother or father? Why weren't they ever charged with neglect?

   Anyways, the events of March 10th would continue to follow Polanski around for the next 40 years. In 1978, the director would accept a plea that required him to undergo psychiatric evaluation for 90 days. But when he heard that the judge was going to overthrow the plea and sentence Polanski to 50 years, the Pole fled the country. 

     Polanski would fight extradition charges for over 4 decades. Currently, he's being held in his native Poland, where the US has been trying to extradite the fallen director back to California where all of his charges are still active against him. Poland officials are stymied as public opinion wants to see him tried for his crimes but feel that the sentence that awaits him in the States is too harsh. For now, Polanski is unable to travel freely, least he be arrested and sent back to California for sentencing. All of his film projects are on hold until further notice. Yet- despite this, his films are held in high regard and they're studied in depth in film classes nationwide.

    Before I go, I'm going to make a controversial statement: this is all Charles Manson's fault.

     In 1969, Manson order several of his followers to start a race war by killing some prominent white families and make it look like blacks had started the whole thing. One of the victims was Polanski's wife, Sharon Tate, who was with child when she was brutally murdered.
     
    I argue that Polanski needed proper grief treatment for this tragedy and as a result went on a downward spiral of depression. This, along with how the media handled the Tate-Bianca murders, framing the victims as the aggressors in the killings, was just too much for the director to handle. I'm not saying it's an excuse for what he did on that terrible night 40 years ago. But had he received therapy for the death of wife and unborn child, this event (along with better parenting decisions on the part of this victim) could have been avoided.

    Until tomorrow, I leave you with the only images that I thought was dignified for this post: the phone numbers and web address to RAINN- the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network and Lifeline. I hope that through it, you might be able to receive the care that the players in today's post didn't.