The 76-year-old director ("Chinatown," "Rosemary's Baby," "The Pianist") was arrested Saturday by Swiss police as he flew in for the Zurich Film Festival, where he was scheduled to receive an honorary award.

Polanski now faces possible extradition to the U.S., where he is wanted for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl.

The Swiss Justice Ministry said in a statement that U.S. authorities have sought the arrest of Polanski since 2005. It is unclear what was going on the first 28 years.

"There was a valid arrest request and we knew when he was coming," ministry spokesman Guido Balmer told the Associated Press. "That's why he was taken into custody."

Polanski fled the U.S. in 1978, a year after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with the underage girl.

Polanski has asked a U.S. appeals court in California to overturn a judge's refusal to throw out his case. He claims misconduct by the now-deceased judge who had arranged a plea bargain and then reneged on it.

But California Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza, who said there was "substantial misconduct" in the handling of the original case, dismissed Polanski's bid because Polanski failed to appear in court in person to make his request.

Polanski's victim, Samantha Geimer, who long ago identified herself publicly, has joined in Polanski's bid for dismissal, saying she wants the case to be over. Hey, it's only been 32 years. Geimer sued Polanski and reached an undisclosed settlement.

"The proceedings must take their course," Polanski's French lawyer, Georges Kiejman, said yesterday. "For now we are trying to have the arrest warrant lifted in Zurich."

Kiejman later told the Associated Press that France does not extradite its citizens and that U.S. authorities had never asked France to prosecute Polanski at home.

Polanski has lived for the past three decades in France and has avoided traveling to countries likely to extradite him.

He is married to French actress Emanuelle Seigner, with whom he has two children.

In Paris, Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said he was "dumbfounded" by Polanski's arrest, adding that he "strongly regrets that a new ordeal is being inflicted on someone who has already experienced so many of them."

Polanski has surely lived a full life: As a child he escaped the Krakow ghetto during World War II while his mother died at the Nazis' Auschwitz death camp. In 1969, his then-wife, actress Sharon Tate, was one of five people murdered in Los Angeles by followers of Charles Manson. Tate was eight months pregnant at the time.

Even as a boy, peace and love

Before he became known as the "Cute Beatle," Paul McCartney showed creative talent when he was a merely a cute kid.

A discovery in a Liverpool library has revealed Sir Paul's talent for writing was winning him prizes when he was just 10 - for an essay about the queen.

A British researcher said he found an essay written - in very tidy, curling script - for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

Kevin Roach said yesterday that he found the work in records at Liverpool's Central Library. Roach said the writing is "advanced - you would say it was written by someone who was older than 10 years old, more like 14 or 15."