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For a lot of us, when we hear the name Albert Einstein, we think "E=mc²" and the 1951 photo of him sticking out his tongue at the camera.
The 10-part biography "Genius" (Tuesday, 7 and 8:15 p.m., National Geographic Channel) will change that.
It opens with the violent assassination of Einsten's friend and fellow Jew, German foreign minister Walter Rathenau, in 1922 — and then cuts straight to Einstein (Geoffrey Rush) cheating on his wife with his secretary. He asks her to move in with him; she points out he has a wife.
"I love Mozart and Bach," Einstein says. "Why can't I love you and Elsa?"
"Genius" is not a dry biography overwhelmed by science.
"I'm like most people in that I sort of thought of the brilliant old guy sticking his tongue out and the theory of relativity and that was about it," said executive producer Ron Howard, who directed the first episode — the first time he's directed an episode of a TV series. But "Genius" tells a complex story of not just the man "but the times in which he was living."
"In humanizing this rock-star icon of the 20th century, I learned a lot of things about Einstein that never even occurred to me," said executive producer Brian Grazer, including that "failure is a big part of Einstein's journey."
"Genius" tracks Einstein's life from when he was a teenager through the end of his life in 1955. Oscar winner Rush ("Shine," "The King's Speech") shares the role with Johnny Flynn ("Lovesick," "Brotherhood), who plays Einstein as a teen and younger man. The story isn't linear; it jumps back and forth in time.
Based on Walter Isaacson's book "Einstein: His Life and Universe," it sometimes seems too crazy to be true — like when Einstein has an affair with a Russian spy, incurring the wrath of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.
"Genius" is about his struggles and his triumphs — in science and in life; his rise to prominence in Germany, and his escape from that country before the Nazis took complete control.
He lived through both world wars and the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe. He fought the scientific establishment, and he fought his father.
He was not exactly a model husband and father. His first marriage to Mileva (Samantha Colley, "Victoria") ended in divorce; his second wife, Elsa (Emily Watson, "Theory of Everything," "The Book Thief"), was also his first cousin.
Executive producer Gigi Pritzker spent "many, many years trying to fit the scope of his life into a movie, and it became very clear that that just wasn't doable — that the man had such an enormous scope of a life."
A life that goes far beyond his work as a scientist.
"I think the biggest thing that has been so well done by Ron [Howard] and Brian [Grazer] and the team is to understand that he is not just about the math and the physics," Pritzker said.
The first two episodes, screened for critics, are engrossing. It's a first-rate production of cinematic quality, filmed in Prague.
It's the eye-opening tale of a great man who wasn't always a good man; a sometimes heroic figure with great flaws.
"And, by the way, going back to 'Apollo 13,' " said Howard, who directed that film, "I think Brian and I have found that honest portrayals of these fascinating characters, including scientists and mathematicians and things like that, actually offer a lot of human drama and even danger — emotional and sometimes physical."
Scott D. Pierce covers TV for The Salt Lake Tribune. Email him at spierce@sltrib.com; follow him on Twitter @ScottDPierce.