THE TIMES Wednesday September 30 2009 FGM 5

News See how we used to live Hollywood divided in support through our picture galleries for jailed director Polanski timesonline.co.uk/archive

Switzerland two weeks to hear about bail, which was unlawful and demanding his the Los Angeles District Attorney still David Charter Zurich legal sources said was unlikely. immediate release. wanted to prosecute the 32-year-old Chris Ayres Los Angeles “The case involves a great director The Oscar-winning director of films case, not least because his victim said but still it is also a case of . . . sex with a including Rosemary’s Baby and The that she did not believe that he should A backlash was growing last night child,” Mr Tusk said. “We should not Pianist faces several months in prison be pursued. against the actors and directors who bring politics into this or speak in patri- because the US has 60 days to send its The actress Whoopi Goldberg said: leapt to the defence of Roman otic tones.” formal extradition request and the “I don’t believe it was rape-rape. He Polanski after his arrest on a child sex Mr Tusk’s warning followed an appeal process is likely to last “some went to jail and when they let him out charge. appeal by his Foreign Minister, Radek weeks”, Swiss authorities said. he was like, ‘You know what, this Celebrated cinema luminaries Sikorski, and Bernard Kouchner, the In Hollywood, Polanski’s friends [judge] is going to give me a hundred including Woody Allen, David Lynch Foreign Minister of France, where and admirers were as outraged that years in jail. I’m not staying’.” Online and Martin Scorsese called for Polanski to be freed immediately from Woody Allen arrest in Switzerland on a US extradi- joined calls to tion warrant. He is wanted for fleeing free director 30 years ago to avoid sentencing after admitting unlawful sex with a 13-year- old girl in 1977. Lawyers for the film director have appealed for his release on bail. Luc Besson, the director of Léon, Polanski lives with his wife and two however, refused to sign the Holly- children. wood petition, saying that no one The petition has been signed by should be above the law, and Donald more than 100 cinema industry Tusk, the Polish Prime Minister, criti- figures. “We demand the immediate cised his Foreign Minister for urging release of Roman Polanski,” it stated. the director’s freedom. “Film-makers in France, in Europe, in Polanski, 76, is said to have felt no the United States and around the qualms about visiting Zurich Film Fes- world are dismayed by this decision.” tival to pick up a lifetime achievement The Times understands that award, partly because his lawyers Polanski’s lawyers made claims on believed that he was no longer actively two grounds in Switzerland yesterday, being sought. He faces a wait of up to arguing that the nature of his arrest STARSTOCK / PHOTOSHOT

Roman Polanski faces a wait of up to two weeks to hear about bail I should have backed Hillary, says Gore Vidal

United States America should leave Afghanistan, Tim Teeman Vidal said. “We’ve failed in every other aspect of our effort of conquer- Barack Obama is failing as President ing the Middle East or whatever you and the US is in danger of sliding into want to call it.” The “War on Terror” a military dictatorship, says Gore was “made up, just like ’weapons of de- Vidal, the pre-eminent American struction’.” essayist and intellecual. On Mr Obama’s plan to reform In an exclusive interview with The healthcare, he said: “He f***** it up. I Times, Vidal, 83, reveals that he don’t know how, because the country regrets switching his allegiance from wanted it. We’ll never see it happen.” Hillary Clinton to Mr Obama during America has no intellectual class last year’s campaign to secure the and is rotting away at a funereal pace, Democratic presidential nomination. he believes. “We’ll have a military “I was hopeful,” he said of Mr dictatorship soon, on the basis nobody Obama. “He was the most intelligent else can hold everything together. person we’ve had in that position for a Obama would have been better off long time. But he’s inexperienced. He focusing on educating the American has a total inability to understand mili- people. His problem is being over- tary matters. He’s acting as if Afghan- educated. He doesn’t realise how dim- istan is the magic talisman: solve that witted and ignorant his audience is.” and you solve terrorism.” Interview, times2, pages 34, 35