Roman Polanski and Bill Cosby have been expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
In a statement, the Academy announced that the governing board had voted to remove the two disgraced stars “in accordance with the organization’s standards of conduct”. The board continued “to encourage ethical standards that require members to uphold the Academy’s values of respect for human dignity”.
The news arrives after Cosby was convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, a former basketball player. His name has since been removed from the Television Academy website and he has lost an honorary degree from Yale. Cosby is currently awaiting sentencing.
Polanski, who won an Oscar for best director in 2003, has been a fugitive since fleeing to France in 1978 while awaiting sentencing for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old. While his membership is being taken away, he will keep his award.
“As far as what I did: it’s over,” Polanski said in 2017. “I pleaded guilty. I went to jail. I came back to the United States to do it, people forget about that, or don’t even know. I then was locked up here [in Zurich] after this festival. So in the sum, I did about four or five times more than what was promised to me.”
Last year a Paris-based retrospective for the director resulted in protests. His most recent film, Based On A True Story, received poor reviews when a work-in-progress print screened at Cannes. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw called it “flat”. Polanski, whose credits include Chinatown and Rosemary’s Baby, has said that it is “unfortunate” that his work is now being viewed with knowledge of the scandal surrounding his case.
In October 2017, Harvey Weinstein became only the second member to be removed from the Academy as a message that “sexually predatory behavior and workplace harassment” had no place in the industry. Before then, the only person to be kicked out was the actor Carmine Caridi, best known for his role in The Godfather, after he shared a copyrighted movie screener with a friend who then uploaded it online.