Susan Greer holds a photo of her husband

The film is based on an article by James Stewart in the New Yorker magazine, All The Heroes Are Dead, and is one of three productions about the attacks on the Twin Towers currently in planning.

Rescorla moved to the US a the age of 23 and served in the US army in Vietnam, his exploits later recounted in the book - and now film, We Were Soldiers - in which he was described as a "battlefield legend".

Drama unfold

He was the head of security at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and died evacuating people from one of the New York towers.

In 1993, he was the last to leave the tower when a bomb was found in the centre.

Rick Rescorla has been called a "battlefield legend"

As the buildings came under attack he phoned his wife at home, who was watching the drama unfold on television .

He told her: "I don't want you to cry. I have to evacuate some people now. If something happens to me, I want you to know that you made my life."

Oscar-winning actress Sarandon will play Rescorla's wife Susan Greer, and she and Robbins hope to have a studio deal in place shortly.

The film will concentrate on the love story between the couple, described as "two fractured people who found each other late in life and enjoyed a storybook romance".

The World Trade Center disaster will provide a cruel finale to the film.

MGM has made a deal with writer Lawrence Wright to adapt his New Yorker article The Counter-Terrorist, while ABC is preparing a major documentary based on Dennis Smith's book Report from Ground Zero.