Born in Paris in 1933, Roman Polanski was raised and educated in Poland where he attended Art School in Cracow and the famed State Film College in Lodz. Having made his stage acting debut at fourteen, he continued to perform on the popular radio show The Merry Gang. In his early 20s he appeared in Andrzej Wajdas acclaimed film, A Generation 1954 as well as in Wajdas Lotna, Innocent Sorcerers and Samson, before leaving Poland.In 1958, Polanski directed the highly acclaimed short film Two Men and a Wardrobe, and made three other short films that brought him attention as an important new film stylist: When Angels Fall The Fat and the Lean and The Mammals. But it was Polanskis feature film debut with the 1962 thriller Knife in the Water that catapulted him to international fame. Winner of the Critics Prize at the Venice Film Festival, Knife in the Water was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Foreign Language Film and was featured on the cover of Time magazine.He made his Englishlanguage debut with Repulsion 1964, starring Catherine Deneuve, and then made CuldeSac 1965, which won Polanski the Best Picture prize at the Berlin Film Festival. His next film, The Fearless Vampire Killers aka The Dance of the Vampires also presented Polanski in a starring role.Polanski marked his American directorial debut with the horror classic Rosemarys Baby 1968, for which he received an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay Adaptation. In 1972, Polanski returned to Europe to direct his adaptation cowritten with Kenneth Tynan of Shakespeares Macbeth, and in 1973 he directed Marcello Mastroianni in the absurdist comedy What 1974 marked Polanskis return to Hollywood with Chinatown, Oscar winner for Best Original Screenplay, and nominated for eleven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director.

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