Editing Jerzy Kosiński (section)

== Friendships ==
Kosiński was friends with [[Roman Polanski]], with whom he attended the [[National Film School in Łódź]], and said he narrowly missed being at Polanski and [[Sharon Tate]]'s house on the night Tate was murdered by [[Charles Manson]]'s followers in 1969, due to lost luggage. His novel ''Blind Date'' portrayed the Manson murders.<ref name=people1/> In 1984, Polanski denied Kosiński's story in his autobiography. Journalist John Taylor of ''New York Magazine'' believes Polanski was mistaken. "Although it was a single sentence in a 461-page book, reviewers focused on it. But the accusation was untrue: Jerzy and Kiki had been invited to stay with Tate the night of the Manson murders, and they missed being killed as well only because they stopped in New York en route from Paris because their luggage had been misdirected." The reason why Taylor believes this is that "a friend of Kosiński wrote a letter to the ''Times'', which was published in the ''Book Review'', describing the detailed plans he and Jerzy had made to meet that weekend at Polanski's house on Cielo Drive."<ref name="Taylor"/> The letter referenced was written by Clement Biddle Wood.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Wood |first1=Clement Biddle |title=Letter, 'Tate Did Expect Kosinski' |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/04/15/books/l-tate-did-expect-kosinski-124051.html |access-date=July 7, 2019 |work=[[New York Times Book Review]] |date=April 15, 1984 |page=35 |archive-date=July 7, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190707172640/https://www.nytimes.com/1984/04/15/books/l-tate-did-expect-kosinski-124051.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[Svetlana Alliluyeva]], who had a friendship with Kosiński, is introduced as a character in his novel ''Blind Date''.

Kosiński wrote his novel ''[[Pinball (novel)|Pinball]]'' (1982) for his friend [[George Harrison]], having conceived of the idea for the book at least 10 years before writing it.<ref>Kosiński, Jerzy (1992). ''Passing By: Selected Essays, 1962–1991'' Grove Press, p.54 {{ISBN|0-8021-3423-8}}</ref>