This charts the rise of the son of an illiterate Russian-Jewish ragman. He tells of a childhood of brutal poverty and the father whose brooding presence had a profound effect on his future. It reveals the inside story of more than 40 years of stardom alongside Sinatra, Wayne and Olivier - and his relationships with movie goddesses like Crawford, Hayworth and Dietrich. it reveals too the determination that led him to take on astonishingly diverse roles that few stars would have risked - Spartacus the slave, the mad painter Van Gogh and the conscience-stricken colonel in Paths of Glory.