The Oscar-winning film director Roman Polanski has won £50,000 in libel damages after successfully suing Vanity Fair magazine over an allegation he said made him appear "callously indifferent" to the memory of his murdered wife Sharon Tate.
A high court jury today found in favour of the director of Rosemary's Baby, Tess and The Pianist, who sued over an article in the glossy magazine alleging he tried to seduce a Scandinavian model on his way to Tate's funeral by claiming he could make her "another Sharon Tate".
Polanski said today the claims in Vanity Fair could not go unchallenged.
"It goes without saying that, whilst the whole episode is a sad one, I am obviously pleased with the jury's verdict today," he said.
"Three years of my life have been interrupted. Three years within which I have had no choice but to relive the horrible events of August 1969, the murders of my wife, my unborn child and my friends.
"Many untruths have been published about me, most of which I have ignored, but the allegations printed in the July 2002 edition of Vanity Fair could not go unchallenged."
The article claimed Polanski had tried to seduce a "Swedish beauty" in the fashionable New York restaurant bar Elaine's, delivering a "honeyed spiel" as he slid his hand between her thighs and promised to turn her into "another Sharon Tate".
Giving evidence by videolink from Paris at the start of the four-day libel trial, Polanski said the Vanity Fair allegation was an "abominable lie" that made him appear "callously indifferent" to his wife's memory.
Polanski won permission from the House of Lords to testify from France because he feared he that if he set foot in Britain he would be arrested and extradited to the US, where he has been wanted since 1977 for having sex with an underage girl.
The Vanity Fair editor, Graydon Carter, who was in court throughout the trial, said he found it "amazing" that "a man who lives in France can sue a magazine published in America in a British court".
"As a father of four children, one of them a 12-year-old daughter, I find it equally outrageous that this story is considered defamatory," he said.
Condé Nast, the publisher of Vanity Fair, suffered an early blow to its case after Polanski was able to provide documents proving he had flown directly from his home in London to Los Angeles for Tate's funeral.
The publisher insisted the alleged incident had taken place some weeks later, when Polanski visited Elaine's with the actor Mia Farrow, star of Rosemary's Baby.
But Farrow told the court Polanski had been in no mood for seduction on the night in late August 1969 when she met him in Elaine's, and that he had "brushed off" two women who tried to flirt with him.
She said the gruesome murders by members of the Manson cult were all the film director could talk about, and that he became so upset they had to leave the restaurant and go for a walk outside.
Asked by Tom Shields, counsel for Condé Nast, whether it might have happened after she left the restaurant, Farrow insisted she would not have left Polanski alone.
"I would not have left him in Elaine's unattended without trusted friends ... I wouldn't have left him there alone, I wouldn't have. He was in really bad shape at that time," she said.
In his closing speech Mr Shields tried to persuade the jury that Polanski's reputation was already so badly damaged it could not have been made any worse by the article in the July 2002 issue of Vanity Fair.
"As to whether Mr Polanski's reputation is capable of being damaged, sadly, we would say, it is beyond repair," he said in his closing argument.
Mr Justice Eady told the jury they were not there to judge Polanski's lifestyle, although he said it was for them to decide whether such an accusation was less likely to defame a man who had admitted having sex with a 13-year-old girl.
The judge also directed the nine men and three women on the jury to consider that Condé Nast's legal team had not called as a witness the person at the heart of the case - Beate Telle, the "Scandinavian beauty" Vanity Fair alleged Polanski had tried to seduce.
He reminded the jury the defence had established that Ms Telle was still alive, and that her whereabouts were known.
In a case notable for the absence of its key witnesses, Polanski made legal history by becoming the first claimant in a libel trial to give evidence by videolink.
Costs in the case are estimated at around £1.5m and today the judge made an interim costs award of £175,000 to Polanski.
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