7Seven Deadly Sins

Roman Polanski attends a film premiere in
Paris, France, in June 2009.

(CNN) — Oscar-winning filmmaker Roman Polanski has been arrested in Switzerland on a decades-old arrest warrant stemming from a sex charge in California, Swiss police said Sunday. Polanski, 76, was taken into custody trying to enter Switzerland on Saturday, Zurich police said. A spokesman for the Swiss Justice Ministry said Polanski was arrested upon arrival at the airport.

He has lived in France for decades to avoid being arrested if he enters the United States and declined to appear in person to collect his Academy Award for Best Director for “The Pianist” in 2003.

The director pleaded guilty in 1977 to a single count of having unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, acknowledging he had sex with a 13-year-old girl. But he fled the United States before he could be sentenced, and U.S. authorities have had a warrant for his arrest since 1978. Video Watch what happens now for Polanski »

Polanski was nominated for best director Oscars for “Tess” and “Chinatown,” and for best writing for “Rosemary’s Baby,” which he also directed. He was en route to the Zurich Film Festival, which is holding a Polanski tribute this year, when he was arrested by Swiss authorities, the festival said. Read full articles…

By Todd Leopold
CNN

(CNN) — In 1967, the Mamas & the Papas had a hit with a song that detailed, with bittersweet harmonies, the checkered history of the band. The song, written by the group’s John Phillips and his wife, Michelle, was called “Creeque Alley.”

If the song were to be updated today, it might have to be retitled “Creep Alley.”

With the claims by John’s daughter, Mackenzie, that she had an incestuous relationship with her father, the story of Phillips and his group — in music, models of California dreams and California Dreamin’– takes on a darker hue.

The story was already tangled, a motley love- and drug-soaked tale of excess set to the group’s distinctive four-part harmonies.

Phillips left his first wife, Mackenzie’s mother, Susan Adams, for 18-year-old Michelle, whom he’d met in a San Francisco club while touring in the early ’60s, according to the band’s biography on Allmusic.com.

The band’s lead male singer, Denny Doherty, later had an affair with Michelle; she was forced out of the group for a time. The fourth member, Cass Elliot, had an unrequited crush on Doherty, the biography noted.

After the Mamas & the Papas’ success with such singles as “California Dreamin’ ” and the No. 1 hit “Monday, Monday,” the Phillipses bought a Bel Air mansion from which they ruled over the Los Angeles music scene. Read full article

By Breeanna Hare
CNN

(CNN) — In an interview with Oprah Winfrey that aired Wednesday, Mackenzie Phillips said that she was raped by her father while still a teenager.

Mackenzie Phillips described an incestuous relationship
with her father during an interview with Oprah Winfrey.

“I woke up that night from a blackout and found myself having sex with my own father, Phillips read aloud from her book High On Arrivalduring the hour-long interview with Winfrey.

“I came out of that blackout and realized what was happening. … I slid right back into it and woke up the next morning in my own hotel room and not with him,” she continued to read. “Your father is supposed to protect you, not [expletive] you.”

John Phillips died in 2001.

Phillips, now 49, said she was 17 or 18 the first time she can remember having sex with her father. Video Watch Phillips talk about her struggles »

When she confronted him and told him they needed to talk about how he raped her, Phillips said, he responded with confusion.
Read full article…

By Bryan Alexander / Los Angeles Tuesday, Jul. 07, 2009