Girl

Life in the Shadow of Roman Polanski

Samantha Geimer, the girl who was the victim of Roman Polanski's infamous sexual assault, breaks thirty years of silence in this poignant and surprising memoir. It recounts the events of that day and their lifelong consequences.

March 1977, Southern California. Roman Polanski drives a rented Mercedes down Mulholland Drive to the home of actor Jack Nicholson. Sitting next to him is Samantha Gailey, now Geimer, a girl aspiring to a career as an actress who recently arrived from York, Pennsylvania. She's thirteen years old.

The court documents record undisputed facts about what happened in the hours that followed. Polanski photographed Samantha for hours - on a terrace overlooking the Hollywood Hills, on a kitchen table, in a topless hot tub. They were drinking wine and the drug methaqualone was also present. Gradually, the inhibitions fell away and the original innocence of their meeting was lost. The young girl's life was irrevocably changed - she was forever an extra in her own story.

Polanski was charged with a total of six felonies and faced several years in prison and subsequent deportation from the United States. His case dominated the media in the United States and abroad for months. But despite extensive coverage, much about that day and the girl at the center of it all remains shrouded in mystery. Perhaps everyone has an opinion about the famous director and the girl he is accused of drugging and raping. Who was the predator? Who was the prey? Was the girl an innocent victim or a cunning Lolita, skillfully controlled by her ambitious mother? How could the criminal justice system have failed so catastrophically in relation to all involved? What happened to Samantha, the young girl forever linked to this most famous Hollywood story, after Polanski fled the country? Samantha, like Polanski, has been on the run for more than thirty years since the events of that night.

The well-known media scandal was reopened after a long time by the arrest of Roman Polanski in 2009 in Switzerland and the request of an American court for his extradition to the USA. Polanski fled the United States in 1978 before his final conviction for his crime and lived in France as a French citizen. An international arrest warrant issued against him in 2003 prevented him from personally receiving the Oscar for Best Director for "The Pianist". The public was divided in its assessment of his case. Most Hollywood celebrities stood behind Polanski, but the camp of those who condemned him was also large.

This book takes us much deeper than the headlines in the media. She introduces us to a 13-year-old girl who was more intelligent than her peers, but at the same time very vulnerable. By telling her whole story for the first time, Samantha intends to reclaim her identity and show that it is possible to change from a victim to a survivor. She puts the media conjecture to rest and looks back on the event that put her on the front pages with perspective and hindsight.