It’s 1945. AUDIE MURPHY receives the nation’s highest award, the Medal of Honor, at the age of 19. He gives a proud salute, but senses his life will never be the same. He’s right.

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Ten years later, at the height of his fame as both a war hero and a movie star, Audie arrives at the premiere of his movie To Hell and Back, detailing the World War II exploits that made him the most decorated war hero in American history. Audie and his wife, PAMELA, get out of their limousine at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, before a huge throng of adoring, cheering fans and press.

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Audie watches the film, as it recreates his poverty-stricken childhood as a sharecropper’s son. In his memory, we see him at age 13 in 1935. He lies in a field sighting through a .22 rifle. He sees some leaves move slightly in a thicket and fires, then goes to the spot and pulls out a dead rabbit to put food on the table for his family of 12.

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We flash back to Anzio Beach in 1944, where, using his foliage-detection skills, he clocks the positions of German snipers hidden in the hills, picking off American troops pinned down on the beach. At night, he sneaks alone into those hills and kills the snipers he spotted, a one-man special forces unit. His legend begins.

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At the screening again, he remembers some other childhood events. We return to Audie as he gives back the rifle he borrowed from the LANDOWNER'S SON, who marvels that he shot four rabbits with the eight bullets he gave him. Audie says he didn’t and hands him four bullets back.

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We see the family eating the rabbits he shot in their decrepit shack as his FATHER argues with his MOTHER. The father moves to hit her. Audie springs toward him with a table knife, telling him to back off. The father laughs, starts to sit down, then backhands Audie across the room, breaking his nose. Audie resets it himself.

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Back at the studio after-party, Audie accepts congratulations from film stars of the era, but, self-conscious about his fifth-grade education, prefers the company of the stuntmen he invited.

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His friend, SPEC McCLURE, tells him Universal thinks the film will be a huge hit, that people will love him even more after seeing it. Audie says they wouldn’t if they really knew him.

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The episode ends with Audie having a nightmare about dead German soldiers coming after him. He tries to defend himself, but his gun falls apart in his hands.

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He wakes up with a start, still in a cloud of fear. He grabs a pistol he keeps under his pillow, shoots two pictures off the wall, then turns the gun on a screaming Pamela.

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He regains his senses, but Pamela tells him he can’t hide his secret life from the public forever.

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We wonder what secret life that might be.

At Pamela’s suggestion, Audie’s in a psychiatrist’s office in 1952, much to his dismay. The PSYCHIATRIST asks about his early life. Audie says it wasn’t good, it’s not worth talking about. The psychiatrist says it’s information he needs to know.

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We see Audie’s father deserting the family, sneaking away from the house at night. Audie, 15 now, sees him, tells him never to come back, he was just another mouth to feed.

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A year later Audie’s mother dies, leaving him devastated. He steals flowers from the landowner’s garden to put on her grave. But, in a further blow, four of Audie’s younger siblings are put in an orphanage. He vows to get them out someday.

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Back in the doctor’s office, the psychiatrist wants to hear how Audie got into the war. Audie’s pissed, wants to talk about what’s going on now, about his secret. He asks if he can go to the bathroom, then goes in and throws up.

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We see Audie standing alone on the platform at a train station in 1942, with his duffel bag, waiting to go off to boot camp.

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There, the Army assigns him to a cook’s unit, but he refuses, says he wants to be in the infantry. They laugh at his small size.

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Undeterred, he sneaks off to the shooting range, steals a rifle, and fires away at a target. An OFFICER tries to stop him, until he sees the tight pattern he’s shot around the bullseye, the best of any recruit. Case closed. He’s earned his way into the infantry.

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During action in France in 1945, LATTIE TIPTON, Audie’s best friend, is killed by three Germans pretending to surrender. Audie goes berserk, storms up the hill, takes a hit, but kills the three Germans and then everyone else in a pillbox at the top.

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Audie returns to Tipton’s body and cries for what he promises to his dead friend will be the last time in his life. The myth of Audie’s invincibility spreads among the troops.

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Audie tells the doctor he regrets that fit of combat rage, says he was suddenly a killer, not a soldier. He vowed to never go off the rails like that again. The doctor basically doesn’t get it.

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Just to piss the guy off, Audie talks about, and we see, him in the hospital for his wound, having sex with one of the nurses while still bedridden. He tells her he just wants a quiet, normal life back home. She doubts that’s possible for a guy with his war rep.

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We end the episode with Audie finally getting to tell the doctor his secret: he’s been having stomach problems, war flashbacks, and nightmares.

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He’s afraid his condition will become public and his fans and fellow soldiers will be disappointed in him.

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The Doc says he’s got a condition called “battle fatigue,” and that it’s temporary, except in soldiers who are “weak-minded.” If he just waits it out, it will go away.

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Audie, done with this guy, gets up and walks out, saying, “The hell it will.”

After the war, Audie comes home to find that he’s become a celebrity. He’s talked into shooting the famous 1945 Life magazine cover story and several staged scenes to go with it, including one with his supposed “girlfriend,” MARY, a girl he’s never met and will never see again.

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The exposure now makes him a national hero, but he’s uncomfortable with the attention, saying that he was not braver than other soldiers, just luckier.

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250,000 people attend a parade for Audie in San Antonio. He’s so freaked out, he skips a banquet in his honor, afraid he’ll have to make a speech.

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JAMES CAGNEY sees the Life article and invites Audie to Hollywood. Cagney tells Audie he has a face for movies and offers to pay for acting and dancing lessons. Audie says he has no talent for this, but ultimately accepts. Alas, the dancing lessons don’t go well.

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At the Actor’s Lab, Audie catches the eye of a beautiful young actress, JEAN PETERS. They begin an affair, having sex nine times in one night, but HOWARD HUGHES soon steals her away with his money and lavish lifestyle. Jean still wants to see Audie on the side, but he tells her to go to hell.

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Despite his fame, Audie’s broke, living in the back of a gym on his $113/month Army pension. During one of his PTSD episodes, he’s doubled up with stomach pain. The GYM OWNER asks if he’s okay. Audie, sweat pouring down his face, says he’s fine, asks if he can borrow $5 to go to a Purple Heart dinner in his honor.

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Audie meets budding starlet, WANDA HENDRIX, in 1947.

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They have a whirlwind romance and become fan magazine sensations. Never one to take an insult lying down, Audie suddenly proposes to her after her mother says he has no real job and isn’t good enough for her.

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Every hard guy in America wants to prove he’s tougher than Audie. He finds himself in a fight with a HITCHHIKER who tries to rob him at gunpoint, saying Audie’s not the hero he thinks he is.

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The guy is 6’2”, 240, but Audie disarms him and beats him to a pulp.

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The press loves it, Audie taking out the trash, but Audie hates it—not the fighting, which gives him a shot of adrenaline he’s been missing since the war, but the attention it draws.

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Audie and Wanda go to the movies and a newsreel comes on about poor German children after the war. Audie can’t watch it, ducking down low, thinking he might have killed one of their fathers.

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Despite the tabloid fanfare, Audie and Wanda have a stormy relationship, given her love of film industry nightlife. Audie doesn’t drink, smoke, or like parties where everybody wants to know more about his war heroics than he’s comfortable talking about.

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But he’s exhausted—tired of needing to live up to everyone’s expectations, tired of trying to beat back his demons. And he can’t sleep. He starts taking Placidyl, a sleeping pill.

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On top of it, Audie knocks Cagney’s brother, Bill, flat when he says Audie will never make it as an actor. His contract with Cagney is not renewed. Audie is back to square one.

In 1949, still in need of money, Audie writes a book, To Hell and Back, about his war experiences, with the help of Spec McClure. Audie dictates every battle and conversation to him. It becomes a bestseller and lands him his first leading movie role in Allied Artists’ Bad Boy, playing a juvenile delinquent.

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But things get worse with Wanda. She tells Audie he fights the war in his sleep, that he wonders why good things have come his way when so many men he feels were better died, instead of accepting that he’s earned what he has.

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Audie realizes she’ll never really understand his condition and fears no one else will either. They divorce in 1950, and Audie tells her it’s his fault. He asks only that she not talk publicly about his “battle fatigue.”

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Back in a house in France during the war, Audie spots an ENEMY SOLDIER and blows him away.

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Then sees the soldier was his own reflection in a mirror. He’s just killed… himself. His buddies think it’s funny. Audie doesn’t, asks them never to tell anyone.

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After the divorce from Wanda, Audie finds himself in demand on the social circuit. His first dinner date doesn’t go well when he’s served a side dish of black-eyed peas. They remind him of the brains of a German soldier he shot in the head. He gets up and quickly leaves the restaurant.

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He does have a few affairs, which don’t last long, because he never stays overnight with the women, afraid he’ll have a PTSD episode and they’ll go public about it.

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But other things start to pick up. On the strength of his strong screen presence in Bad Boy, Universal offers him a seven-year contract at $100,000 a year to do B-level Westerns. Audie immediately gets his younger siblings out of the orphanage and buys them a house.

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Embracing his new Western persona, Audie goes full badass pistolero, dedicated to becoming the fastest gun in Hollywood, and soon wins several fast-draw contests. But HUGH O’BRIAN, a big TV star who plays Wyatt Earp, thinks he’s faster and challenges Audie to a drawdown.

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Audie, hating fake tough guys, tells O’Brian that a true gunfighter is not just fast, but also accurate in the face of death. He suggests they use real bullets to see who’s truly the best.

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O’Brian decides maybe this was a bad idea.

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In 1950, Audie gets a big break, the lead in JOHN HUSTON’s The Red Badge of Courage. They will become friends. Audie admits to Huston that life has been hard for him after the war. He’s sometimes bored. It’s the main reason he chases women and gets in fights. He’s not looking for love or trouble; he’s looking for stimulation. He didn’t love war, but he misses its intensity.

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For the role, he puts a caged rattlesnake in the back seat of his car to find something that might scare him, like war does the boy he plays. It scares the hell out of an actor he drives to set.

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Trouble strikes when Audie has to make a quick stop to avoid a driver who’s run a red light. The cage crashes forward into the back of the front seat, jarring the cage door open and flinging the rattlesnake onto the floor in front.

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We go out on the actor screaming in fear.

Audie slams his foot down on the snake, just behind its head, as the actor scrambles out of the car.

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Audie grabs the snake, holds it up inches from his face as the snake bares its fangs. Audie’s disappointed that this doesn’t scare him. Takes the snake out in a field and sets it free.

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Audie meets PAMELA ARCHER, a stewardess supervisor. She’s calm and steady, not into Hollywood fanfare. Audie wants to marry her, but asks her to talk to Wanda first so she knows what she’s in for. Pamela takes in everything that Wanda says and doesn’t blink.

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‍Red Badge dies at the box office. TONY CURTIS challenges Audie to a fast draw game called “Drop the Handker-chief.”

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Audie, still licking his wounds, finds out Curtis dated Wanda after they broke up, and shoots him with a blank during the game. Curtis stumbles off in pain, never speaking to Audie again.

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Audie is called into Universal, wondering if they’re going to drop him after the failure of Red Badge. He’s surprised to find that the westerns he’s been doing have all made money, even though he plays outlaws in most of them.

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Now they want to change his image and have him play good guys, beginning with a remake of the James Stewart classic, Destry. Audie is stunned. Destry is a comedic sheriff who doesn’t use a gun. Audie’s not a comedian and feels naked without a weapon.

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Pamela thinks he’s plenty funny and should do it, show his range. Audie doesn’t think he has any range, but gives one of his best performances, and Destry is a hit.

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Endorsement offers role in, but Audie refuses to appear in ads for alcohol or cigarettes, not wanting to send what he feels is a bad message to kids.

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Audie starts to incorporate more humor into his films. We montage his greatest comedic moments, including his famous line from No Name on the Bullet where, as a hired killer, he only wings a MAN who draws on him. The Man asks why Audie didn’t kill him. Audie deadpans, “I wasn’t paid to.”

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Audie begins taking lessons at ESTELLE HARMAN’S Actor’s Workshop. He’s surprisingly good at Shakespeare, especially “Macbeth”, although he asks Pamela not to tell anybody. He’d be mortified if any of his friends, mostly stuntmen and cowboys, found out.

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Audie’s doing a scene with another actor on the workshop stage. Suddenly, Audie freezes when he’s about to say his line. The class wonders what’s happening. It’s like Audie’s in a trance.

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Audie suddenly comes to. Everyone’s looking at him. He knows he’s got to pull off some credible explanation, or blow his PTSD cover.

Audie laughs and says he forgot his line, and too embarrassed to admit it, was using his military-trained powers of concentration to try to remember it. And then Audie says the line. The group gives him a round of applause. Another bullet dodged.

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That night at home, when he tells Pamela about it, she asks where he went in his mind. He says back to the “Colmar Pocket.”

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We go to the Colmar Pocket in France in 1945. Audie’s ordered to hold a position with 19 men and two tank destroyers (TDs) against 150 German troops and six tanks. A SERGEANT asks on the radio phone how close the Germans are. Audie replies, “Just hold the phone and I’ll let you talk to one of the bastards.” He requests reinforcements. He’s told they won’t be coming.

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In 1954, Universal decides to make "To Hell and Back" into a movie.

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Audie balks at playing himself, not wanting it to be a tribute to him but to all infantrymen.

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He talks it over with Pamela as she wipes disinfectant on the places where, years after the war, he picks shrapnel out of his body that has risen to the surface. She thinks he should do the movie only if he can handle it emotionally. He finally feels he’s found a woman who understands him.

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To shield her from danger, he makes his garage over into a bedroom and keeps the lights on to make it hard for him to go to sleep. Or if he does fall asleep and wakes up from a nightmare, she won’t be there for him to point his gun at.

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When shooting To Hell and Back, the DIRECTOR wants Audie to cry when both his mother and Lattie Tipton die. He tries every trick he can, but Audie, having promised Tipton he would never cry again, sheds no tears, even though he’s a wreck in both scenes.

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During the press junket, he’s told his father has come to visit him. He says he doesn’t have a father and refuses to see him.

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‍To Hell and Back is Universal’s biggest hit ever, until Jaws in 1975, though Audie feels it’s not a realistic picture of war.

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He follows it up starring opposite Jimmy Stewart in Night Passage. Audie is surprised to learn that Stewart, who was a bomber pilot in World War II, has night sweats, the shakes, and fits of rage from his 20 air missions. His condition is described as being “flak happy” in the parlance of the time.

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Audie asks if he’s ever thought of going public about it. Stewart says that’s the only thing he can think of that might make it even worse. But he does have a clause in his studio contracts that forbids them from promoting him as a war hero.

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‍Night Passage is a modest money-maker, but the fact that Audie, coming off the success of To Hell and Back, has now worked with an actor the caliber of Stewart, leads to him being named one of the top five movie stars in the world. Because Pamela is out of town, Audie celebrates with a YOUNG STARLET.

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Later, Pamela, their recently born son in a crib, reads to Audie from a fan magazine about what a great husband and father he is. He gives her a kiss, then goes into his office bathroom and punches the wall in shame until his hand bleeds.

Audie makes a million dollars on To Hell and Back, allowing him to buy a small plane and a ranch where he can breed racing quarter horses. But mostly it helps finance a new, more destructive habit, as he tries to block out the dark corners of his mind - gambling.

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One day at the track, he wins $29,000, but loses it in the next two races, not having enough left to buy lunch.

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Audie spends most of his free time with his quarter horses, especially the champion he bought, Joe Queen. He teaches his two sons, TERRY and JAMES, how to ride and care for the horses.

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Audie’s become one of the top riders in Hollywood under the tutelage of actor BEN JOHNSON and rodeo champion/actor CASEY TIBBS. He wants to ride Joe Queen in his westerns, but the horse is too fast for the studio horses to keep up with.

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He hires renowned horseman, HAROLD FARREN, to retrain Joe Queen to compete in stock horse trials and cutting competitions, sometimes with Audie riding him.

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Audie is now a fixture at the race track. He barely glances at a pretty blonde walking by as he checks his racing form. Suddenly, a MOBSTER shows up, threatening to kill him for ogling his WIFE.

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Audie pulls out a gun, lays it in his lap, says, “I killed 100 guys like you in Italy, one more won’t make any difference.” The mobster flees in a panic, as Audie goes back to his racing form.

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Audie enters several of his quarter horses in races and bets heavily on them, losing more than he wins. He tells Spec that the horses are his most prized possession, because around them he feels free and open, the way he wishes he could feel all the time.

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But Audie’s last 5 films have bombed. In 1958, desperate for a hit, he jumps on The Quiet American, shooting in Vietnam. Fearing the Viet Cong might try to get to the set, he carries a loaded .45 and keeps 500 rounds of ammunition in his hotel room.

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But he’s also horrified by the child poverty he sees there, and despite his gambling debts, donates a lot of money to an orphanage in Saigon.

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The Quiet American is a box office dud, and Audie doesn’t get another big movie until 1960, when John Huston offers him a part in The Unforgiven with BURT LANCASTER and AUDREY HEPBURN.

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Audie though is in a downward spiral. He fires a rifle at passing billboards and stop signs out the window of the car driving actors to the set, scaring the hell out of them. Huston confronts him and Audie settles down and gives another powerful performance, although The Unforgiven also flops.

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Audie fears his career may be over.

Having made friends with several policemen, Audie, needing some real world action, becomes involved in the war on drugs, going undercover for the LAPD.

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Spending nights on the streets, he makes several drug deals that result in the arrests of 18 drug dealers.

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But ironically, he’s become addicted to the Placidyl he takes to fall asleep. So he locks himself in a hotel room, and goes through withdrawal and convulsions, just like a junkie. He kicks the habit cold turkey in a week. Vintage Audie Murphy.

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In 1962, burned out on westerns, Audie starts writing Country Music lyrics. DEAN MARTIN does one of his songs, “Shutters and Boards” and CHARLIE PRIDE does “Was It All Worth Losing You”.

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Both are good songs, but they’re not big hits, and Audie doesn’t make much money.

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Depressed, he tries to revive his spirits by having an affair with NATALIE WOOD.

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Pamela confronts Audie about all his affairs. He comes clean, says Pamela should leave him before he ruins her life. Why should she respect him when he doesn’t respect himself?

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But Pamela understands his demons and says whatever he does, he has to keep it out of their house and away from their children.

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In 1965, Audie’s contract isn’t renewed at Universal. Bummed out, he calls his friend BUD BOETTICHER and tells him he’s going to kill himself. Boetticher tells him, “That’d be a wonderful fuckin’ thing to do for all the kids in the world who worship you.”

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Audie responds, “What kind of fuckin’ kid worships me anymore?”

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Instead, Audie sleeps with the wife of one of his best friends, a very tough stuntman. When the stuntman finds out, he goes after Audie and they throw down, except Audie doesn’t fight back. He lets the guy pummel him, leaving him bloody and unconscious.

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The police find him and take him to one of their doctors. Word never gets out to the press.

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Spec asks him why he let the friend beat the shit out of him. Audie says because he deserved it. Spec then asks why he slept with the friend’s wife in the first place. Audie has no answer. He just shakes his head. Spec realizes it’s a mystery to Audie too.

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Then Audie finds himself in the biggest trouble of his life. He’s arrested for attempted murder.

It all starts with Audie at the apartment of a girlfriend, when she gets in an argument on the phone with a guy named DAVID GOFSTEIN, whom she’d hired to train her German shepherd. Gofstein says she has to pay an extra fee for guard dog training. She gets upset, then Audie hops on the phone and the argument escalates.

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Audie goes to Gofstein’s kennels the next day and confront him. Gofstein, in the suit, claims that Audie slapped his wife twice, then beat and kicked him. When he ran off in a panic, he alleges Audie fired a shot at him.

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Audie hires a top celebrity lawyer, PAUL CARUSO, and pleads not guilty. Caruso works on Audie’s trial demeanor like it’s a movie role, but Audie replies in the press that: “It would ruin my reputation if I shot at a guy that was 6’3” and missed.”

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At the trial, Audie admits to punching Gofstein, but denies hitting Mrs. Gofstein or having a gun at all.

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After it comes out that Gofstein was found guilty, two months before, of cruelty to animals, it’s no contest. Audie is acquitted on all counts.

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But it’s not a big win sword for Audie. Even though he beats the rap, his defense was not very convincing, and the press comes down on him hard. His reputation is in tatters, and he can’t even afford to pay Caruso his $25,000 fee.

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By 1970, the gambling debts have mounted up and at 44, Audie is flat broke. Spec tells him he’s lost over 3 million dollars from gambling and bad investments. His small plane is gone, and so are his two ranches, and most of his prized quarter horses.

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He could declare bankruptcy, but that’s just one more thing that being Audie Murphy won’t allow him to do.

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Pamela finds Audie in his study playing Russian Roulette with a gun to his head, having already fired two chambers. She takes the gun away, checks to see if there are any bullets in it.

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There’s one. Audie has hit rock bottom.

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She tears into him, says he should be less concerned with who he was and more concerned with who he could be. Audie finally has to admit that none of his excesses, the fighting, philandering, or gambling have defeated or even diminished his demons.

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Now what?

Encouraged by Pamela, Audie opens up about his PTSD, something he admits scares him more than the War ever did. He addresses a Congressional committee about the need for better physical and mental health care for Veterans.

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The message is not always well-received, particularly by the U.S Army, whose recruiting efforts have already taken a large hit from the unpopularity of the Vietnam War.

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But Audie, never one to back away from a fight, continues to speak out, even condemning the Vietnam War.

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He tours the country, meeting veterans and telling their stories, creating for the first time, a national awareness of the psychological consequences of war.

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It will be many years before any really meaningful action is taken to alleviate the mental suffering of veterans, and it is still a work in progress, but it would have been even longer in coming, if not for Audie Murphy.

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A two-engine plane takes off from Atlanta. We go inside to see Audie in the back, lost in thought, as the plane begins to shake.

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We go back to the Colmar Pocket. Audie sees that one of the TDs, while burning, still has a working machine gun. He scrambles up on it, starts firing the .50 caliber at the advancing Germans.

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He’s hit in the leg and goes down, but struggles back up and keeps blasting away for a full hour, until the Germans retreat. He limps away from the TD, which finally explodes. He collapses, exhausted.

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We see LIEUTENANT GENERAL ALEXANDER M. PATCH III hanging The Medal of Honor around Audie’s neck for his actions in the Colmar Pocket.

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Back in the plane, now pitching around violently, other passengers are freaking out.

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But a slight smile creeps onto Audie’s face at the memory of the Medal of Honor. He makes a small, goodbye-like salute.

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He’s finally accepted the fate it conferred on him.

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WALTER CRONKITE announces Audie’s death in a plane crash on the CBS evening news. It’s Memorial Day, 1971.

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Audie is buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. At his insistence, his grave has no special decorations, unlike other Medal of Honor winners.

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OVER BLACK, we end with a quote from Audie: “No soldier ever survives a war. He can only hope he learns to live with it.”

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Audie Murphy was many conflicting things, but at the heart of it, World War II created in him a hero so outsized, that he could not possibly live up to its demands, nor escape the demons the war seared into his soul. He was a prisoner to his fame, always struggling to get out of the shadow of his own legend.

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BILL MAULDIN might have said it best: “In him, we all recognized the straight, raw stuff, uncut and as fiery as the day it left the still. Everybody wanted to be like him, but if they knew his story, nobody would have wanted to be him.”