Polanski: A cursed life?

Roman PolanskiDirector Roman Polanski has led a less-than-charmed life.

His story is as convoluted and curious as one of his own thrillers, which makes the prospect of a forthcoming biopic on him sound pretty darned interesting.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ohio-born actor and filmmaker Damian Chapa is working on an unauthorized film about Polanski.

As a Jewish boy growing up in Poland, Polanski survived the Holocaust, but lost his mother to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Since 1978, he's been a fugitive from the U.S., living in France, following his guilty plea of having sex with a minor.

Sharon TateThe film is expected to cover those dark chapters, and the murder of Polanski's second wife, Sharon Tate, at the hands of the Manson family.

"It's a very intense story we're going to carefully base on court documents and public-domain records," Chapa told the Hollywood Reporter. "I've looked at the court documents of his (statutory rape) case, and they're so brash and in-your-face. What happened there has overshadowed his whole life yet also been swept under the carpet. I've always been fascinated by his story and couldn't understand why no one has done a movie about him."

Speaking of fascinating movies yet-to-be-made, I think it would be great to delve into the macabre web of coincidences surrounding Polanski's 1968 horror film, "Rosemary's Baby."

Based on the book by Ira Levin, "Rosemary's Baby" stars Mia Farrow as a young woman who is unwittingly impregnated by the devil. A conspiracy of Satanists, including her duplicitous husband, conspire to use Farrow as a vessel to bring the Anti-Christ to life.

Here's where things get really creepy.

• Jan. 25, 1968: Polanski and Tate marry. Shortly after, they conceive a child.

• June 12, 1968: "Rosemary's Baby" is released in the U.S. The film was partly shot at The Dakota, a swanky apartment building in New York City.

• March 1969: Polanski and Tate move to a Los Angeles mansion.

• April 23, 1969: Krzysztof Komeda, a Polish jazz musician and film scorer, dies from a cerebral hematoma, caused by a head injury. Komeda wrote the score for "Rosemary's Baby."

John Lennon• Aug. 9, 1969: Four followers of Charles Manson, a crazed hippie cult leader, break into the Polanski-Tate mansion and murder her and four other people. Tate was eight months pregnant. Polanski is out of the country at the time. Manson will later claim to have been inspired by alleged hidden messages on The Beatles' "White Album."

• August 1971: Ex-Beatle John Lennon moves to New York City, taking up residence in The Dakota, the apartment building featured in "Rosemary's Baby."

• December 8, 1980: John Lennon is murdered at the entrance to The Dakota by an obsessive fan, Mark David Chapman.

• May 11, 1981: Ex-Beatle George Harrison releases "All Those Years Ago," a Lennon tribute single which refers to his murderer as "the devil's best friend."

Creeped out yet? Don't be. Just keep telling yourself it's all just coincidence.

(Jorge Sosa is a staff writer for the Hutchinson Leader. He can be reached at sosa@hutchinsonleader.com)