In the work of Jack Garfein - Holocaust survivor, theater and film director, key figure in the formation of the Actors Studio - past and and present freely intermingled to contribute to memorable stage productions and in two films, many which were ahead of their time in tackling such issues as homosexuality, race and violence. Powered by his vivid recollections and augmented with readings by Willem Dafoe, The Wild One traces Garfein’s life: his Czechoslovakian youth, his family’s fleeing the Nazis, surviving in Auschwitz and other camps, his 1946 arrival at 16 in New York and coming under the wing of Lee Strasberg, Hollywood, his marriage to actress Carroll Baker.

A disillusioned writer follows the intertwining stories of several people, but are they his own inventions or do they really exist?