What? Frantic*

All film directors, whether famous or obscure, regard themselves as misunderstood or underrated. Because of that, they all lie. They’re obliged to overstate their own importance.
François Truffaut (1932–84), French film director

This case seems a bit strange to me. Roman Polanski, film director, was in court pressing a libel claim against Vanity Fair. The article reported that he alleging tried to seduce a woman while on his way to his slain wife's funeral in 1969. Sharon Tate was murdered by followers of the Charles Manson clan in 1969, when she was eight-and-a-half months pregnant.

The director had to testify via video link, in order to avoid the possible risk of being extradited from Britain to the United States after pleading guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. He cannot be extradited from his native France for the crime.

This is the part that gets me. Unless they had an open marriage, I find it hard to believe him.

According to the article by Reuters: "This was the worst thing ever written about me. It's absolutely not true. But I think it was particularly hurtful, because it dishonors my memory of Sharon," Polanski said. The director admitted he was sexually unfaithful to Tate before and during his marriage, but took offence at the allegation he had used her name to seduce the woman.

One passage in the Vanity Fair article, published in July 2002, quoted him promising the Swedish woman: "I will make another Sharon Tate of you." Now that is some promise considering how she died.

Asked whether he had seduced another woman within four weeks of his wife's death, Polanski replied: "Maybe I was seduced by someone. I never considered sex, particularly at that pre-AIDS period, as something harmful. Quite the contrary."

This just seems like a frivolous lawsuit that should be thrown out.

*What? And Frantic are two Polanski movies