The Other Roman

News came down earlier this week that after 30+ years living like a lawless legend, Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland and extradited to the USA related to charges of having sex with a 13 year old.

While having sex with a minor is clearly despicable, and in another life might I call him an a-hole for otherwise narcissistic and misogynistic behavior, I have a real soft spot for Roman Polanski both for his creative genius (Rosemary's Baby remains one of the most haunting and gorgeously shot films- the best way to see The Dakota if you don't have the fortune of a guest pass) and for the serious hard knocks he's endured (as a young child he fled the Nazis in Poland where his mother was killed in Auschwitz, and 25+ years later, his 2-weeks-from-delivering pregnant wife Sharon Tate was brutally murdered).

While my own little guy Roman wasn't expressly named after Polanski, I did like the association, and frequently reference it for clarification to distinguish "Roman" from the more French "Romain." Any of Polanski's crimes and misdeeds didn't deter me from embracing the name in the way that the associations of a loaded "Napoleon" or even a "Claus" (van Bulow) would. Besides, I couldn't name my son after a type of lettuce.

Indeed, before (my) Roman was born, we had a binder to file all his important things like ultrasound images and insurance papers. Camille has a similar binder, as do my husband and I. Our photos grace their bindings for easy recognition of whose is who. In lieu of any photos of Romie (the above reference ultrasound image being one notable exception), we had one of a young, always short, Polanski, and only upon my son's birth did we change it. But I didn't part with the image entirely, it persists in the inside of the binder.  

I'll be curious to see what happens with Polanski, its hard to rally behind a guy who doped and raped a 13 year old, but for my part, if he were to be sent back to Paris, he'd make a helluva celebrity sighting.