(CNN) -- Roman Polanski is regarded as one of the finest directors of his generation, winning an Oscar for "The Pianist" and nominations for "Tess" and "Rosemary's Baby," but he is probably as equally well known for his own tumultuous life.



Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate are pictured together in London in the 1960s.



Polanski, who was arrested Saturday in Switzerland on a U.S. arrest warrant stemming from a decades-old sex charge, had lived in France for decades to avoid being arrested if he enters the United States.



The 76-year-old declined to collect his Academy Award for Best Director in person when he won it for "The Pianist" in 2003. He was en route to the Zurich Film Festival, which is holding a tribute to him, when he was arrested by Swiss authorities, the festival said.



Polanski was put in "provisional detention" and now faces the possibility of being extradited to the U.S., where a warrant for his arrest was issued in 1978.



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 fled the U.S. before he could be sentenced.



Polanski was accused of plying the girl, then known as Samantha Gailey, with champagne and a sliver of a quaalude tablet and performing various sex acts, including intercourse, with her during a photo shoot at actor Jack Nicholson's house. He was 43 at the time.



Nicholson was not at home, but his girlfriend at the time, actress Anjelica Huston, was.



According to a probation report contained in the filing, Huston described the victim as "sullen."



"She appeared to be one of those kind of little chicks between -- could be any age up to 25. She did not look like a 13-year-old scared little thing," Huston said.  Watch as filmmakers rally round Polanski »



She added that Polanski did not strike her as the type of man who would force himself on a young girl. "I don't think he's a bad man," she said in the report. "I think he's an unhappy man."



Polanski was born in Paris in 1933 of Polish-Jewish parents. Aged three, he and his family returned to Krakow in his father's native Poland. After the Nazis invaded his parents were sent to concentration camps: his mother was gassed at Auschwitz although his father survived the war.



The young Polanski survived the Krakow ghetto and "soared out of Poland on sheer personality," according to director Marina Zenovich, whose 2007 documentary "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired," paints a sympathetic picture of the exiled movie legend.



Growing up in war-torn Poland, the young Polanski found comfort in the cinema and in acting in radio dramas, on stage and in films. In 1962, Polanski directed his first feature-length film, "Knife in the Water." Poorly received in Poland it was a sensation in the West, and won an Academy Award nomination as Best Foreign Film.  See images of Polanski's life on cellulloid »



He later moved to England, co-starring with American actress Sharon Tate, whom he married in 1968, in the Hammer horror parody, "Dance of the Vampires/The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me But Your Teeth Are in My Neck."



Following his move to Hollywood, Polanski was at his peak: he was one of the hottest directors thanks to the critical and commercial hit Rosemary's Baby and he was married to the beautiful Tate.



"At a certain point in his life, Roman Polanski had a lot of hope," Zenovich told TIME magazine in 2008. "He was living this great life. He was so talented and everyone wanted to work with him."



But that hopeful period ended when Tate, eight months' pregnant, was murdered by followers of Charles Manson in 1969. According to TIME, Polanski spent the first years after her death on a kind of sexual spree, and began spending time
When did he marry Sharon Tate? Where was Polanski born? Who did Polanski marry? When did he plead guilty? What year did Polanski plead guilty? Who murdered Pregnant Tate?
1968, Paris Sharon Tate in 1977 1977 by followers of Charles Manson in 1969.
question: When did he marry Sharon Tate?, answer: 1968, | question: Where was Polanski born?, answer: Paris | question: Who did Polanski marry?, answer: Sharon Tate | question: When did he plead guilty?, answer: in 1977 | question: What year did Polanski plead guilty?, answer: 1977 | question: Who murdered Pregnant Tate?, answer: by followers of Charles Manson in 1969.