Groundbreaking 'spaghetti westerns' such as the 'Dollars' trilogy (starring Clint Eastwood as 'The Man With No Name'), and the magisterial Once Upon A Time In The West, made Sergio Leone one of the most popular directors in world cinema. Christopher Frayling's biography of Leone (the first) lovingly explores his body of work, and casts light upon the previously little-known details of his life. Leone was born into movies, his father a popular director of the silent era. Obsessed by the illusory worlds of cinema and theatre, captivated by the myths of the American West, young Sergio embarked on a fabulous career of his own. He made an icon out of the initially reluctant Clint Eastwood, and dallied with the Hollywood studio system, but always stuck to his guns: the gangster epic Once Upon A Time In America consumed 15 years of his life. But Leone's passion made for extraordinary cinema: a widely-adored collection of films, about which Frayling provides an unprecedented wealth of extensively-researched analysis and anecdotage.