ROMAN POLANSKI found himself on the other end of the camera yesterday as he told a libel jury by video link of his sexual adventures after the murder of Sharon Tate, his pregnant wife.

The diminutive film director who won an Oscar for The Pianist in 2003, listed a catalogue of conquests that began within a month of the actress’s death at the hands of the notorious Charles Manson “family” in 1969. Seeking solace in sex, he admitted taking “fresh-faced nubile” teenagers from finishing school in Gstaad, Switzerland, to his bed within four months of the murders of Miss Tate and four of their friends at the couple’s Hollywood home.

But that was only after he had seduced an air hostess, a “sexy young model who gave me the come-on for weeks”, and had a one-night stand with Michelle Phillips, the wife of John Phillips, both stars in the pop group Mamas and the Papas.

What the Polish-born director of Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown and Tess, angrily denied, however, was a report in the magazine Vanity Fair that he tried to seduce a “Swedish beauty” on his way to his wife’s funeral with the promise that he would “make her the next Sharon Tate”.

Mr Polanski, 71, who has been wanted in the US since 1977 for having sex with a 13-year-old girl, described a suggestion that he tried to exploit his wife’s memory in the seduction as an “abominable lie”. He was giving evidence by video link from Paris to the High Court in a libel action he has brought against the magazine’s publishers, Condé Naste.

The court was told that if he appeared in Britain he could face arrest and extradition to America where he would be jailed for the offence against the 13-year-old. Mr Polanski told Tom Shields, QC, counsel for Vanity Fair: “The death of Sharon and the whole tragedy was a measurable shock to me and at such moments some people turn to drugs, others to alcohol, some go to a monastery. But for me, it was sex. I looked for solace and tried to forget.”

The article, published in July 2002, alleged that he had made sexual advances to the Swedish girl in Elaine’s Restaurant in New York, en route to Los Angeles for the funeral. It was only two days after the murder of Miss Tate, 26, who was eight months’ pregnant. Mr Polanski said: “I never sought to seduce anyone at Elaine’s. That would have been callous indifference to my late wife’s memory.”

Quoting Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper’s literary magazine, the article said: “The Swedish beauty was sitting next to me. Polanski pulled up a chair and inserted himself between us, immediately focusing his attention on the beauty, inundating her with his Polish charm. Fascinated by his performance, I watched as he slid his hand inside her thigh and began a long, honeyed spiel which ended with the promise, ‘And I will make another Sharon Tate out of you’.”

Mr Polanski was filming in London on August 8, 1969, when his wife, who wanted their baby to be born in America, was killed. Miss Tate’s sister, Debra, listened intently to his evidence from the front row of Court 13 as he recounted his love for the actress. But she also heard him admit his philandering before and during the marriage and describe his promiscuity which his wife had tolerated in the free- loving 1960s.John Kelsey-Fry, QC, his counsel, told the jury that Mr Polanski flew directly to Los Angeles to arrange her funeral on August 13.

Describing the significance of the article, he said: “It means that in the immediate aftermath of hearing of the loss of his wife and child in brutal circumstances, he went on the pull and, moreover, exploited his now late wife’s name as a tool of seduction. It reveals monstrous conduct by any bereft husband and father to be.”

Mr Kelsey-Fry told the jury that the magazine, which denies libel, accepted that none of this happened on the way to the funeral. Its case now was that it occurred towards the end of the month.

Mr Polanski’s case was that the incident never happened. The jury was told it was taking part in legal history as this was the first time a claimant was taking part in libel proceedings by video link from abroad.

The case continues.

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