He is also remembered for his tumultous personal life. His wife, actress Sharon Tate, was murdered by the Manson Family in 1968. His flight from the country following a 1978 guilty plea to statutory rape of a 13 year old girl continues to make headlines, tarnishing his reputation as a film director. Unable to return to the United States, where he would face immediate arrest, he has continued to direct films in Europe, including Frantic (1988), the Academy Award-winning The Pianist (2002), and Oliver Twist (2005).Raymond Roman Polañski was born in Paris as Rajmund Liebling to Ryszard Polañski (aka Ryszard Liebling), a Polish Jew, and Bula Polanska (née Katz), who was born in Russia to a Jewish father and Christian mother. In 1937 his family moved back to Poland, where they were eventually captured and imprisoned by the Nazis, along with millions of other Polish Jews. His mother died in a concentration camp, but Polañski avoided incarceration there, escaped the Kraków Ghetto and spent the war wandering the countryside of Europe. These experiences later influenced the style in which he directed his 2002 Academy Award winning film The Pianist, which starred Adrien Brody, whose father is Jewish and whose mother is a Hungarian Catholic.

He was educated at the film school in £ódŸ, Poland, from which he graduated in 1959. Polañski speaks five languages: Polish, Russian, English, French and Italian.Several short films made during the study gained considerable recognition. His first major film Knife in the Water (1962) was the first significant Polish film after the war that was not associated with the war theme. It was Polañski's first nomination for the Oscar.

Polañski then made films in Britain; Repulsion (1965), a disturbing tale of madness and alienation; Cul-de-Sac (1966) is similar in tone to the plays of Samuel Beckett, telling the story of a couple living on a remote island (Donald Pleasance and Françoise Dorleac) who are visited by two gangsters (Lionel Stander and Jack MacGowran).

The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) is the American title for Dance of the Vampires, an unusual combination of comedy and horror. Polañski's visuals give the film the feeling of a fairy tale, and at the same time he continues to explore the darker side of human relationships. The director was not happy with the American version of the film, which was re-cut in addition to having its title changed.

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