Sharon, Why Didn’t You Flee?
Yes… A post really meant for the “What If” Department Store of Life [another store, no doubt, Charlie would have had Mary and Sandy skulk into, to buy stuff on a stolen credit card while the rest of the principal Family members sliced, diced and julienned their way into the criminal history books]. But my imagination has always fed thoughts in me that in the wee hours of many a night, when mere outsiders like us are sound asleep in our oh so safe beds, the really affected, surviving family members of this Cielo slaughter - Paul, Doris, Patti & Debra Tate - would have laid awake, utterly haunted, wondering all sorts of “Whys”. Now, I’m sure they had more detailed inside information than we do even today, as to why Sharon didn’t at least attempt an escape from that Living Room that night, and maybe, hopefully, for them, there never was any need for this particular questioning torment. I really DO hope that’s the case and that I’m wrong even in pondering this question. S
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by Eric Pape
May 17, 2010 | 3:36pm
Getty Images A 1999 interview actress Charlotte Lewis gave about her affair with Roman Polanski contradicts her accusations last week and reveals a troubled past.
Charlotte Lewis, the British actress who came forward last week and claimed that Roman Polanski had raped her twice in his Parisian penthouse on the Avenue Montaigne when she was 16 years old, has been directly contradicted by a source who seems at least as reliable as she is: Charlotte Lewis.
The now-42-year-old Lewis made headlines at a May 14 press conference in Los Angeles with her attorney Gloria Allred, when she said that the fugitive director had abused her “in the worst way possible” a quarter century ago. Polanski remains under house arrest in his chalet in Gstaad as Swiss authorities contemplate whether or not to extradite him to Los Angeles over a 33-year-old statutory rape case involving a 13-year-old girl. Lewis also gave a statement to legal authorities in L.A., and said that she hopes that Polanski “gets what he deserves.”
“I knew that Roman had done something bad in the United States, but I wanted to be his mistress,” Lewis said, according to Liberation. “I wanted him probably more than he wanted me.”
But in 1999, Lewis gave a very different account of events in an interview with Britain’s News of the World. In that interview, which was unearthed by the French daily Liberation on May 17, Lewis asserted that she actually had a six-month tryst with the Polish-born filmmaker when she was 17. “I knew that Roman had done something bad in the United States, but I wanted to be his mistress,” Lewis said, according to Liberation. “I wanted him probably more than he wanted me.”
In that 1999 interview, Lewis never mentioned any sexual abuse and she said that their relationship ended when Polanski introduced her to Warren Beatty, who was scouting for the film Ishtar, and she claimed that they soon began an affair. The earlier interview also detailed a deeply troubled past, including her forays into prostitution at age 14 while Lewis was still in Catholic school. And Lewis spoke of her cocaine addiction and hinted at flings with an array of celebrities—she has been linked to her Golden Child co-star Eddie Murphy, Mickey Rourke, and Charlie Sheen.
There were immediate questions about the validity of Lewis’ recent allegations, given that she was cast in Polanski’s 1986 film Pirates, and appeared at the Cannes film festival on his arm years after the alleged incident. And in an interview the year of the film's release, Lewis asserted, “I’d love to have had a romantic relationship with [Polanski], and a physical one. You can’t help falling in love with him. But he didn’t want me that way.”
Today, though, Lewis blames the 76-year-old director for her inability to enjoy a healthy relationship with a man, and for her past bouts of bulimia, according to a May 17 interview with the Mail on Sunday. When the newspaper asked her why she is speaking out now, she said it is to counter pro-Polanski elements in Hollywood, not for hush money.
According to Lewis’ account in the Mail, Polanski, who was three times her age when they met, told the aspiring starlet that he slept with every actress he worked with. “That’s how I get to know them, how I mold them,” she claims he said. Lewis fended off his alleged groping and left, but later returned to him after calculating the opportunity that might otherwise slip away at a time when her family was struggling financially. Two weeks later, she returned to Paris for a screen test with him, and she was cast in Pirates.
One of Polanski’s French lawyers says that they are contemplating legal action against Lewis.
code for>>>you're hurting our case so we'll try to smear ya in public but know we don't have a legal leg to stand on...
More to the point would be why other women have NOT stepped forward...probably because of the treatment they would receive, not unlike what Lewis is receiving...
Hollywood then, and for the better part now, is an Old Boy's Club and unless you own a production company like Sandra Bullock, you have to suck up to these director/producers in order to get parts. As far as I can see, to be an actress IS to be a prostitute...and Roman probably counted on that.