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Stanley Tucci tells the dramatic story of modern California from Hollywood to Silicon Valley.

California wants to dazzle you with its endless sunshine and visions of the future – but that’s just a mirage. Stanley Tucci plays a hard-boiled screenwriter uncovering the full, sordid truth. He knows exactly where all the bodies are buried.

His screenplays tell the stories of ten women and men who built California. It's a high risk, high reward state. A place where, if you make it, you're on top of the world. But if you don't, there's a long, long way to fall.

In this omnibus, the first man to direct a full movie in California meets an untimely end. In 1911, 41 year old Francis Boggs was on the up, a pioneering movie director. But his luck was just about to run out. Also the men who lied and lied and lied again to bring water to arid LA, and the story of the superstar revivalist preacher who was as big as Chaplin – before she disappeared without trace. Plus, the story of the first African American Oscar winner, Hattie McDaniel and the man who hunted Nazis on the streets of LA, Leon Lewis.

Stanley Tucci tells the real story of California, a story littered with dead bodies, disasters and duplicity.

Academic consultant: Dr Ian Scott, University of Manchester

Written and produced by Laurence Grissell