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Filming on a movie exploring the fascinating relationship between Dylan Thomas and John Malcolm Brinnin, the manager of his final, ill-fated American tour in 1953, is about to start in Swansea.

Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood has joined the cast of Set Fire to the Stars, being overseen by highly rated Downton Abbey director Andy Goddard.

The movie, being shot in Swansea and New York, has been co-written by Goddard and Holyhead born actor Celyn Jones (whose TV credits include Above Suspicion, Leaving and Shameless) who will play Dylan opposite Elijah Wood’s Brinnin.

Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals is being lined up to compose the score.

English actress Kelly Reilly (Mary Watson in the Sherlock Holmes movies starring Jude Law and Robert Downey Jnr) will play poetry centre secretary Liz Reitell, Thomas’ lover at the time of his death.

Brinnin was a Canadian-American poet and art critic instrumental in bringing Thomas to the USA for his legendary jaunts across the Atlantic in the early 1950s.

As tour manager he witnessed the Welshman’s increasingly erratic behaviour culminating in his 1955 book, Dylan Thomas in America. It became a Broadway play, Dylan, solidifying Thomas’ reputation as a hard drinking, womanising, bohemian genius.

Some criticised Brinnin for not addressing Thomas’ poor health before his death following a whiskey binge in a smog filled New York in November 1953.

Caitlin Thomas, arriving at the Big Apple’s St Vincent’s Hospital to find her husband dying, is said to have threatened to kill Brinnin.

But Swansea based Dylan Thomas expert and chairman of the Dylan Thomas Society of Great Britain, Jeff Towns, who met with the movie makers yesterday, said: “On the contrary, Brinnin was infatuated by Dylan and his work. He was a remarkable man in my view who did what he could to help a bloke from Wales coming to America who liked a drink.

“He was caring, typified by the fact he’d often secrete cash in gifts Dylan bought for Caitlin, ensuring the family would get some of his tour money.

“He once stuffed $800 in a handbag Dylan bought for her in America knowing Caitlin would get it in Wales.”

Of the movie, due to start shooting in Swansea later this month Mr Towns said: “I’m hoping it’s going to be a big success particularly in the year we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of Dylan’s birth.”

Set Fire to the Stars is the last of Thomas’ poem about Caitlin, Love in the Asylum.

Brinnin died in Key West, Florida on June 25, 1998 leaving his own epitaph: “I think I am as well-known as I deserve to be.”

Brinnin was the director of New York’s Young Men’s And Young Women’s Hebrew Association Poetry Centre (aka the 92nd Street Y) where Liz Reitall was the secretary.

In Dylan Thomas In America he detailed Thomas’s stage breakdowns, obscene outbursts and fights at faculty parties.

Describing how he first met Dylan at Idlewild (now John F Kennedy) Airport, Brinning said: “His hair was as tangled as a nest from which the bird has flown, his eyes wide, scared, as if they sought the whole dreadful truth of America at once.”