Charlotte, as she is today, escaped Hollywood and now leads a 'normal life' bringing up her son in London

It has been a long time since Charlotte Lewis held a crowd enthralled in Hollywood.

But if she ever dreamed of a return to Los Angeles, where as a young actress she was hailed as a ‘golden child’ – talented, exquisitely beautiful and with a film career unfurling before her – it would never have been like this.

On Friday, Charlotte, now 42, called a Press conference in Los Angeles to claim that director Roman Polanski, the man who gave her her first break, had abused her, ‘in the worst possible way’ when she was just 16 years old.

Polanski is currently under house arrest in Gstaad in Switzerland under threat of extradition to America to face charges of an alleged rape of a 13-year-old in 1977.

His alleged victim, Samantha Geimer, has said she has no desire to see him stand trial as she simply wants to get on with the life she subsequently built.

But 27 years after their first meeting, Charlotte feels very differently. She wants him to ‘get what he deserves’, she says and has given a statement to prosecutors in Los Angeles.

Now, in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, Charlotte explains why she has chosen to speak up now – against not just Polanski, but against  Hollywood itself.

She says: ‘I know I should have gone to the relevant authorities at the time but I was scared and ashamed. I somehow thought it was my fault.

‘I’ve been so angry with some of the people in Hollywood who have spoken out in support of Polanski. Hollywood is giving the wrong message to paedophiles.

'He sexually abused me and manipulated me in the worst way. He has scarred me and the experience has definitely put a strain on my life.

‘I was recently engaged to a lovely man, but I would often clam up physically and I don’t think I’m very good in relationships. I will never forgive Polanski for what he has done to me.’

Charlotte had only just turned 16 when she first encountered Polanski. She had left school at 15 and by her own admission thought she was ‘pretty grown-up and street smart’ at the time. Looking back, she recognises that, though she may have been precocious and ambitious, she was anything but.

She had no acting experience but knew that she wanted her future to lie in film.

She modelled a bit while she searched for her big chance and, in 1983, she got it when a mutual acquaintance, 23-year-old model Eliza Karen, asked her to come with her to Paris to audition for a role in Polanski’s film Pirates.

Polanski had fled to the French capital five years earlier to escape the American courts over the Geimer case.

Charlotte recalls: ‘We had come over to Paris on the boat with notmuch money so that I could meet Roman. I was with Eliza, a friend ofhis. She was also a model and a couple of years older than me.

Vulnerable: Charlotte and Polanski launch the Pirates film at the 1986 Cannes film festival

‘She had put me up for a part in Roman’s new film. Apparently hewanted someone exotic-looking and because of my Hispanic look he wantedto see me. I didn’t know at the time, but I later found out that theyhad already found a French actress to play the role so I don’t know whyhe still wanted to see me.

‘We had checked into a hotel whichwas pretty central and very reasonable but when we told Roman where wewere staying he said the hotel was not good enough and invited us tostay in his spare penthouse on the Avenue Montaigne, which seemed likea great offer.’

That night the girls went straight to Roman’s house for pre-dinner drinks. The first thing Polanski did on seeing Charlotte was to frame her face with his hands, as if shooting her through a camera. She felt uncomfortable, she now admits, but given the purpose of their meeting this in itself could hardly be described as odd.

She says: ‘The very first thing he asked me was, “How old are you?”I told him I was 16, but only just. This was in September and I hadturned 16 that August.’

After dinner Polanski checked the girlsout of the hotel room that he had dismissed as substandard and tookthem back to his apartment. While her friend retired to a neighbouringflat, Charlotte stayed chatting with the director on the sofa in hisliving room.

Fugitive: Roman Polanski, now 76, is facing extradition to America

‘We were drinking Moet and Chandon, I’ll neverforget that, and I still can’t drink that champagne to this day. Hetold me he wanted me to stay the night with him and then he made a passat me. He tried to kiss me and touch my breasts. I pulled away and toldhim that I had a boyfriend, which wasn’t true. It was an excuse, but hedidn’t care.

‘He just said very coldly, “If you’re not a bigenough girl to have sex with me, you’re not big enough to do the screentest. I must sleep with every actress that I work with, that’s how Iget to know them, how I mould them.”

‘Iwas shocked and got very upset and started to cry. I said I didn’t wantto sleep with him, he was 50 and I found him disgusting.’

But as she recalls this today, Charlotte admits that she feltconflicted. ‘I saw this opportunity slipping away,’ she says softly.

‘My mother who had been working as a legal secretary had just beenmade redundant and although I was doing a lot of modelling I didn’thave a lot of money. I saw this film as my chance to make it. All thesethings were going through my head and I was getting more and moreupset. I told him I didn’t want to sleep with him and I left.

‘I went to the other flat to see my friend and tell her what had happened.’

Charlottesays that, in her naivety and confusion, she became concerned that shewas letting a professional opportunity of a lifetime pass her by, soreturned to the director’s apartment.

‘Roman opened the door and led me to the bedroom,’ she recalls.

She has described exactly what she alleges happened next to the Los Angeles’ prosecutors, who are expected to investigate.

Charlotte says that the following morning, Polanski invited her and Eliza to join him for breakfast in his living room, and she accepted. She says now: ‘All I remember was wanting a bath. I needed to clean myself and I went to get fresh clothes. 

‘After breakfast he wanted to show us the Mona Lisa so he took us tothe Louvre and some other museums in the centre. We had lunch, then Iwent back with him to his apartment to collect my things as I wasflying back to London that afternoon. I don’t know where Eliza was, Ican’t remember.’

She claims that a further incident took place before she left for home.

Some might find it difficult to square her allegations of an ordealthat she claims was terrifying with her decision to return to Paris twoweeks later for the Pirates screen test. But she did return and she gotthe part that would launch her career.

‘I never told my motherwhat had happened,’ she said. ‘I was just too ashamed. I needed to dothis movie, the money was good – I was being paid £1,200 a month. Mymother and I were living in housing association accommodation and thiswas a life-changing amount of money.’

Speaking out: Actress Charlotte Lewis, right, with her lawyer Gloria Allred at the Los Angeles press conference

Charlotte’s Irish motherraised her alone and the actress never knew the Iraqi-Chilean father towhom she owes her looks. Speaking in a promotional interview for thefilm in 1986, Polanski himself said of Charlotte: ‘She had what Ineeded for the film. Dark hair, dark eyes – and the look of innocence.’

Back then Charlotte spoke of the experience of filming as a ‘nightmare’.

‘Polanskitried to dominate me right from the start,’ she said. ‘He swore at meand shouted at me. There was such pressure on me that I became anervous wreck.’

Today Charlotte recalls: ‘The mental abusestarted as soon as I started filming. I always felt that as soon as Istarted the movie he wanted to fire me.

‘I developed a serious eating disorder. He would play mind gameswith me and tell me I was too fat and then too thin. I developedbulimia and lost so much weight I passed out five times during filming.

I had turned 17 and Roman had been told by the producer Tarak BenAmmar and MGM to stay away from me. I was very alone. They wouldn’tallow me to have an agent. Roman continued to emotionally bully me andwould joke to other people onset that I was frigid.

Scared: Charlotte says she is angry at the reaction of some people in Hollywood who support Polanski

‘I remember he made a bet once with a very famous American male actor that there was no way he could get me into bed because I was so cold and frigid. The producer flew my mother out to Tunisia [where Pirates was filmed] and I remember her hating Polanski. She said he had dead eyes.’

But though little has changed in how she remembers the miserable process of filming itself, her version of what happened between her and Polanski on a physical level has altered with the years.

In 1986 Charlotte claimed: ‘I found him very attractive, I’d love to have had a romantic relationship with him – and a physical one. You can’t help falling in love with him. But he didn’t want me that way.’

Though it is worth noting that at the time she was speaking she wasstill working for Polanski and, it could be argued, in thrall of him.

Today she says: ‘There was nothing about him I could have found physically attractive. He was short and stout and very strong.’

Inanother interview in 1999 Charlotte went on to claim that she did havea relationship with Polanski. But that it started after she had beencast in the film and when she was 17.

‘I wanted him probablymore than he wanted me,’ she said then, claiming that they were loversfor six months in an affair that ended only when they began filmingPirates in Tunisia. She claimed afterwards that she’d been misquoted.

Ultimatelythis case must come down to one person’s word against another’s.Charlotte did not keep in touch with Eliza, the one person who couldcorroborate her account and, despite The Mail on Sunday’s strenuousattempts, we have been unable to trace her.

What is clear is that what Charlotte had hoped would be the start ofa great Hollywood dream, instead set her on a path that led ultimatelyto addiction and despair.

Following her appearance in Pirates, Charlotte was hailed the newNastassja Kinski – a former protege of Polanski who is said to havestarted an affair with him at the age of 15.Charlotte split her timebetween the UK – where she had a long-running role in Grange Hill – andHollywood, where she starred opposite Eddie Murphy in The Golden Childin 1986.

She eventually moved to America and was swiftly linked with astring of eligible A-listers and hell-raisers, including Charlie Sheen and Mickey Rourke.

Professionallyher star was on the rise but personally she was in serious trouble.‘Living in Los Angeles is like being at one long party,’ she lateradmitted. ‘It’s difficult to get away from it. I got to the stage whereI was wondering, “What is the point of living here?” All I have istemptation.’

But she never lived up to her early film promise andin 1997, 14 years after she met Polanski, Charlotte returned to Britainand checked into the Priory to be treated for cocaine addiction. Shehad tried to give it up twice already, she said, but only ever in a‘half-hearted’ way.

She tried to resurrect her career but whatever attraction Hollywood had held seemed to have gone.

Rising star: Charlotte starred alongside Eddie Murphy in The Golden Child in 1986

Eight years ago she quit acting for good and today she says: 'I am happy but it’s true to say I have never been able to have a normal relationship with a man. I have spoken to my vicar and my GP about this and I am now having counselling.’

Charlotte has many reasons for speaking out now but money is not one of them and she has not been paid for this interview.

Instead, she insists, her abiding desire is simply to tell the truth that she has concealed for so long.

Last summer she made two trips to Paris and tried to contact Polanski. She says: ‘I wanted to see him. I wanted him to apologise. But he was away making a movie.

‘I’d heard that Polanski’s daughter had turned 16 and if I could ask him one question it would be, “How would you feel if this was your daughter?”

‘I will never forgive Polanski,’ Charlotte says as tears threaten to fall. ‘I’ll never know if my life would have been different had this not happened. There needs to be some justice. I’m telling the truth and Roman knows I’m telling the truth.’

Mr Polanski declined to comment last night.