LEWISTON — Like a woodworker stripping the varnish off a piece of fine furniture, biographer Mark Griffin of Lewiston spent the last three-and-a-half years stripping away the layers of Hollywood glamour and fantasy surrounding director Vincente Minnelli.

He discovered a hidden brother and teenage trauma. And he found sometimes contradictory stories about the Oscar winner who famously wed Judy Garland and three other women.

Was he gay? Maybe, Griffin said. There could be no proof for a man who died almost 14 years ago.

However, Griffin believes he cracked a kind of cypher to the man who created such cinema classics as “An American in Paris,” “Lust for Life” and “Gigi.”

Stories of insecurity and mental anguish end again and again in self-discovery and triumph. They seemed to mirror the story of a guy who grew up poor and unpopular, but whose ambition brought him fame and wealth.

Griffin tells Minnelli’s story in “A Hundred or More Hidden Things: The Life and Films of Vincente Minnelli,” to be released March 1 by Da Capo Press.

Each of Minnelli’s 38 films was an “autobiography in code,” Griffin said.

It’s the kind of story that first hooked Griffin when he was a teenage student at St. Dominic Regional High School.

“The word that comes to to me is ‘life-affirming,'” said Griffin, sitting in a basement office. Biographies of old-Hollywood actors and directors spill from too-full shelves.

At 16, he was already a confirmed movie buff.

“I was the kind of kid who would leave a soccer game with friends because (Garland’s) “A Star is Born” was on TV,” Griffin said.

“The Wizard of Oz” taught him to love movies. Then, he saw Minnelli’s time-shifting musical fantasy, “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever,” starring Barbra Streisand.

“I found it healing and empowering,” Griffin writes in the introduction to his book. “My friends thought I had lost it. They began to look at me funny.”

But he watched it over and over, assured each time by the message that you already are who you ought to be.

It began a lifelong affinity for Minnelli, who was MGM studio’s longest-tenured director.

Griffin, a writer for the Boston Globe and several movie magazines, started work on the book tentatively. He screened every movie he could find. He read every book, including Minnelli’s own autobiography, “I Remember It Well.”

When he started digging more deeply, he was shocked at the ease with which information came his way. In Minnelli’s boyhood home of Delaware, Ohio, people came forward with photographs and stories that had never been told.

“It was like every door opened up,” Griffin said. “It was as though Minnelli was directing from heaven.”

With little work, Griffin found an agent and publisher. Movie stars such as Lauren Bacall, Kirk Douglas and Angela Lansbury came forward with stories of the perfectionist director who seemed to be directing from storyboards he held in his head.

Griffin said he knew he had a strong book when the stories he heard began linking together in a coherent, unique narrative.

“When the pieces of the puzzle started to fit together, I knew I had it,” he said.

Griffin hopes the resulting 306 pages help people find the essential artist beneath the films that are so well known for their striking color and careful compositions.

Even classic confections like “Meet Me in St. Louis” with Garland and “The Band Wagon” with Fred Astaire have heartfelt stories beneath their polish.

“I love the varnish and I love the gloss,” Griffin said. “But there is a real beating heart under the surface of all of his films.”

So far, the book has been well-received. Though it won’t hit shelves until March 1, the national cable TV channel Turner Classic Movies plans to publicize its publication as a pick of the month for April.

On March 3, Griffin will host a tribute to Minnelli at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

Before that, he hopes to get a little practice as a host by introducing Minnelli’s “Gigi” for an Auburn Public Library screening on Tuesday at 2 p.m.

Griffin hopes the work will convince people to give Minnelli’s work another look.

He dedicated the book “To Lester.” That was Minnelli’s real first name. He changed it as a window dresser and photographer in Chicago.

“I wanted to dedicate it to Vincent’s authentic self,” he said, much like the 16-year-old Griffin was when he discovered Minnelli’s movies.

“I hope that it’s a really fitting tribute to an artist that I have always revered,” the author said.

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