The Late Doug Dalton, Long-Time Lawyer For Roman Polanski, Leaves A Legacy Of Respect
22.08.2022 - 01:51
/ deadline.com
Just a bit ago, I learned that Robert Douglas Dalton—best known as Roman Polanski’s long-time lawyer—had died.
It wasn’t a surprise. Doug, as most called him, was by my reckoning almost 93 years old, and had been ill for a while. His son Bart confirmed the death. The cause, ultimately, appears to have been heart failure. But, in truth, time simply caught up with him.
Still, I felt a jolt when documentarian Marina Zenovich, who made the much-viewed Roman Polanski: Wanted And Desired, called to say that Doug was gone. If you’d dealt with Doug, even a little, you knew that an amazing, old-school uprightness died with him. He had it, and never lost it. Very few, inside or outside the legal profession, shared his stubborn devotion to the correct path. By way of testimonial, Zenovich actually gave her son the middle name of “Dalton.” That’s kind of amazing, but not really—Doug Dalton affected people that way.
I first encountered Dalton about 15 years ago, when he just considering a renewed effort to have what he viewed as legal abuses in the Polanski case examined by the courts, even though Polanski remained a fugitive, and was technically barred from a hearing.
It wasn’t something he seemed particularly eager to do, at least not as he described the situation over breakfast at, if memory serves, the Wilshire Country Club, near his Hancock Park home. Dalton (in just one aspect of a considerable legal career) had represented Polanski since he was first charged with rape and a number of other crimes in 1977. In the thirty years that followed, Dalton—by then in his late seventies—had been through the wringer: Grand jury, plea-bargain, judicial sleight-of-hand, fugitive client, media storm, failed resolution attempts, you name it.
Dalto