19/07/2005

Mia Farrow takes stand in Polanski libel case

Film director Roman Polanski has started the second day of his London libel case by attacking the recollections contained within a Vanity Fair magazine article as "a blatant lie".

Polanski, 71, is suing the magazine over a claim made in an article in the title’s July 2002 issue that the director made sexual advances to a woman on the way to attending the funeral of his wife, Sharon Tate.

Speaking via video link from Paris, the Oscar-winning director said that he was "astonished" at the descriptions within the article of his supposed behaviour, and said that it was “the worst thing ever written about me. It's absolutely not true."

Actress Mia Farrow, 60, took the stand on Tuesday to deny that the director had propositioned anyone in the days after his wife’s death, recollecting that he had been unable to think about anything other than the murder in the days following the event.

She also testified that Polanski ‘paid no attention’ to several women who attempted to flirt with him during a visit the actress and director had made to a bar in New York, in the days following the funeral.

Speaking in court yesterday, Polanski said that the allegations contained within the article were ‘completely untrue’ and that the claims were an affront to the memory of his late wife.

Sharon Tate, and four of her friends, were murdered in Los Angeles in 1969, by followers of US serial killer Charles Manson. The 26-year-old actress had been eight months pregnant at the time of her death.

Polanski currently resides in Paris, where he fled after pleading guilty in a US court to charges of having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

The case is set to conclude later this week.

(CL/SP)

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