Last fall, we learned that Samantha Geimer, the former teen whom Roman Polanski was convicted of sexually assaulting during a 1977 modeling shoot, was writing a memoir about the ordeal and its aftermath. And today, the front cover of the book, titledThe Girl: Emerging from the Shadow of Roman Polanski, has been released, showing a portrait of a 13-year-old Geimer (then Gailey) taken by Polanski himself. According to The Hollywood Reporter, it was taken “less than three weeks before Polanski drugged and raped her at Jack Nicholson’s Mulholland Drive home during a modeling shoot when he also gave her alcohol and a quaalude.”
For haunting context, The Hollywood Reporter adds: “He took the pictures during his first photo session with Geimer, now 50, at her home in Woodland Hills, a session in which the director coaxed the young girl to pose topless for him in some of the shots.” Geimer’s decision to use the photo was apparently part of a “strategy to reclaim her story.” When the book was originally announced, Geimer said that that was her intent with the book: “I am more than a ‘Sex Victim Girl’ [and] I offer my story now without rage, but with purpose—to share a tale that will reclaim my identity.”
She gained possession of the photo, and others from the photo shoots, from Polanski after filing a civil suit against him in 1988. In addition to the pictures and their rights, theReporter notes, Polanski agreed to give Geimer $500,000 plus interest, but Geimer had difficulty collecting it.
The book goes on sale on September 17.
Related:Samantha Geimer Writing Memoir About Her Sexual Encounter with Roman Polanski
