An openly right-wing conservative and super-patriot, Stewart worked for the FBI at the behest of J Edgar Hoover, directing his undercover sleuthing to crack organised crime in Hollywood. But he was unscrupulously manipulated by the president into flushing out Communists from the film industry. Yet there are also tales of heady love affairs, hookers and hoodlums, and of Stewart's run-in with the most dangerous of all gangsters, Benjamin 'Bugsy' Sigal. Accusations of racism are explored, Stewart's notoriously volatile temper, and the most comprehensive account of his experiences as a colonel in the Air Force in World War Two. Then there are the films; 'It's a Wonderful Life'; 'The Greatest Show on Earth'; 'Rear Window'; the westerns and his Academy Awards.