The Da Vinci Code star endured merciless bullying at school and a tragic bereavement in his early years that drove him to the brink of self-destruction with drink and drugs.

But learning to cope with life's tragedies and turmoil fuelled his drive for success and helped turn him into the charismatic Hollywood A-list star he is today.

A family friend says: "Life wasn't kind to Paul when he was young. But his family troubles toughened him up and gave him the thick skin actors need to succeed. Seeing how far he has come, and how happy he is in his career and home life today, makes his family exceptionally proud."

Yet if his father hadn't been discouraged from having a sex-change operation five years ago Paul might have to had to explain to his co-stars Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou why his dad was now his second mum.

Thane, 75, was confused about his sexuality for years and thought seriously about having the drastic operation. He kept this secret from some members of his family but discussed it with his sensitive actor son.

Thane has said: "A few years ago the operation cost £7,000, and I did think, yes. But £10,000 is a lot of money. I have to pay for it. I'm too old to have it on the NHS. It also depends on whether it's wise for me, at my age, to have the procedure.

Paul was born into a show-business family. Thane was a ballet dancer and actor who performed with legendary names including Margot Fonteyn and Sir John Gielgud. His mother Anne Kettle was a talented singer and performer whose parents were also wellknown stage stars.

"I was bullied horribly," he recalled. "And I hated everything about school. Part of the reason was that when I was young we lived on quite a rough estate in Harlesden and I suppose I spoke posh. But we didn't have much money and I didn't fit in."

When he was eight the family moved to Hertfordshire, where Thane taught drama at Queenswood School, a private girls' school. The hardworking dad - who had bit parts on TV, including an appearance alongside Tom Baker's Dr Who as evil peasant Tarak - wanted to build a financially secure life for his family.

But eight years later the family idyll was shattered by the death of eight-year-old Matthew, who fell from a roof of a tennis pavilion on a fine spring day in 1988.

Thane remembers well the tragic day that ripped the family apart and nearly drove him to suicide. He said: "Paul was 16, and he, Matthew and I had been out looking at planes.

"Back home, Matthew and his friend Jamie asked to go over to play at a place near our home. I told them I would collect them from the pavilion in an hour. About half an hour later little Jamie came running up in tears and said: 'Thane, you'd better come. Matthew's had a fall.' They had been climbing on the pavilion and he lost his hold and fell on to concrete.

"But as the evening wore on the answers to doctors' questions got stranger and stranger. Then they decided to operate and he never recovered from that."

"I was in such a state of grief that I decided to drive straight at a lorry," he said. "But then I heard Matthew's voice say to me: 'So, Dad, you are going to put Mum, Sarah and Paul through it all again?' and I realised what an awful, selfish thing it would have been to do."

Paul, too, sank into a deep, dark depression. Blaming himself for his beloved brother's death, he moved to London, lived in a cockroach-infested flat above a Greek restaurant and tried to support himself by busking.

He has said: "What happened to Matthew really tore me apart. I thought I should have stuck closer to him, been there for him. But I wasn't. I had this need to punish myself.

"I mixed with some pretty dreadful people when I was busking with a guitar on places like Westminster Bridge in London. I struggled for many years to get through it." But in the end his brother's death shaped his career - which has seen him outshine Russell Crowe in seafaring adventure Master And Commander and star alongside Kirsten Dunst in Wimbledon.

"Paul got up, clambered across the table, grabbed the guy by the lapels and shook him. After that he got straight into drama school because of the passion he showed. It helped make him the actor he is now."

He recalled: "I think there will always be a part of me which is inconsolable. But through therapy I stopped doing all the bad stuff. It was slowly destroying me."

With his career firmly on the up and global fame at his feet, it seems that pin-up Paul has finally found the happiness that eluded him in his early years.

So when he beams a handsome smile at the countless cameras that will flash in his pale blue eyes at the Da Vinci Code premiere, no one will grudge him an ounce of the riches and success coming his way.

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