One of the most colourful, innovative and controversial film directors of the 60s and 70s, Sam Peckinpah is best known for the challenging classic western The Wild Bunch. Garner Simmons, television and screenwriter who served on the set of two Peckinpah films, spent ten years researching the definitive biography of his sometime mentor. He interviewed Peckinpah himself at great length, and talked candidly with such co-workers as Jason Robards, Steve McQueen, Ali McGraw, Charlton Heston, Dustin Hoffman and Kris Kristofferson, as well as with various film executives and technicians. Their words enhance Simmon's vivid portrait of a complex, intuitive near-genius who, believing that creativity can be born only out of turmoil, was always prepared to cause it.