Here's the Daily Mail's psychoanalysis of Steve...


ALAN PARTRIDGE has always had a hilariously troubled attitude to
sex. Whether gyrating on the stage of a strip club, wearing nothing
but a leather thong and a comfy multicoloured jumper, or berating a
one-night stand for spilling chocolate mousse on his bedcovers, the
fictional television presenter has never failed to amuse.

He has a disastrous broken marriage behind him, children he hardly
ever sees, a crazy Eastern European catalogue girlfriend and a
disturbing obsession with 'ladyboys'.

The comic message is clear: this man is so pathetic it's hilarious.
Steve Coogan, creator of Norwich's most famous DJ, certainly seems
to think so: he has made three television series about him and is in
the process of writing Alan Partridge, the movie.

Indeed, the comic is so proud of his creation that friends say it is
sometimes hard to see where Coogan ends and Partridge begins. Their
comments are at least partly tonguein- cheek. Nobody could be that
ludicrous in real life . . . or could they? After the extraordinary
revelations of the past week, they might not be so sure.

Coogan, we are told, has recently embarked on a sexual liaison with
Courtney Love, the notoriously unstable, drug-addicted widow of rock
legend Kurt Cobain.

And not only that. She is reportedly pregnant with Coogan's child,
the result of two weeks of wild, drugfuelled sex in a Los Angeles
hotel.

Establishing the veracity of this claim is a challenge worthy of
Hercule Poirot. (She denied it, then disappeared into rehab; he has
described it as 'ludicrous' but failed to rule it out.) But whatever
the truth, the debacle has done nothing to counter the growing
conviction among friends that, when it comes to sex, Partridge is
the mirror image of Coogan.

Let us examine the evidence. Broken marriage? Check. Coogan's
marriage to society beauty Caroline Hickman collapsed last year
after he spent the night with a pair of lapdancers (one blonde, one
brunette).

Child from a broken relationship? Check. In 1996, Coogan was dumped
by solicitor Anna Cole, the mother of his eight-year- old daughter,
after affairs with at least three women, including a topless model.

Leather thongs and ladyboys? Who knows, but according to one of his
old flames, Coogan is 'the kinkiest man I have ever met in my life,
and clinically incapable of fidelity'.

Take in the Courtney Love episode -- he reportedly filled their
hotel room with sex toys and Viagra and wanted a hooker to join them
in bed -- and it is easy to see why friends are concerned that the
comic is spiralling out of control.

So what is it that drives Coogan's appetite for self-destruction?
How can it be that a man who has so much going for him -- his
undisputed comic genius has earned him a fortune in excess of GBP
10million -- seems so inexorably drawn to trouble?

'Even when he has something good going on in his life, he simply
can't help going off the rails,' says a female friend. 'In fact,
that is when he's at his most vulnerable. If he is happy and secure
then that's when he will shoot himself in the foot.

'He's a typical Irish Catholic sensitive soul, with a split
personality. He is a Jekyll and Hyde character in every way
imaginable.

PART of him wants to be the sweet, considerate father; and another
part of him is really quite seedy. After all this time, you'd think
he would have learned his lesson: but he can't help himself.'

It is worth noting that Coogan has not always been renowned as a
sexual predator. He was brought up in a large Irish Roman Catholic
family in Manchester, one of four brothers and two sisters, and was
regarded as 'something of a geek' at school.

'He hides it well, but Steve has a real chip on his shoulder about
that,' says a source who has worked closely with the star.

'At school, and when he first arrived at Manchester Polytechnic
(where he studied drama), he was not very popular with the girls.
They thought he was weedy and a bit of a drip.

'Ever since he became famous, it is as if he has been making up for
lost time. Every time he sleeps with a page three girl or a
stripper, there is a part of him saying: "See, I'm not a geek. I can
have any woman I want."

'The sad thing is that this need to prove himself sexually has
destroyed every meaningful relationship he's ever had.'

The catalogue of indiscretions, beginning after he met Anna Cole, a
35-year-old solicitor, in 1992, makes for depressing reading. The
couple were together for four turbulent years, and by the time their
relationship ended Coogan had already added at least three more
notches to his bedpost.

First there was topless model Nancy Sorrell (now married to another
comic, Vic Reeves), who told how Coogan flung GBP 5,000 in GBP 10
notes on a bed and ordered her: 'Lie on them. Go on, lie on them.'

THEN there was dancer Susan Acteson and record company worker
Katerina Russell -- the latter affair, incidentally, conducted when
Miss Cole was pregnant with their daughter.

And these are just the flings his partner found out about. There
was, in fact, at least one more, with a young journalist.

After Miss Cole finally dumped him, Coogan became concerned that he
was addicted to sex and sought counselling from a psychotherapist
priest. Not for the first time -- and certainly not for the last --
he was consumed with Catholic guilt. He even managed four months of
celibacy.

It was around this time, too, that his career began to take off.
Alan Partridge wowed critics and audiences alike, and a British
comedy legend to rival Basil Fawlty was born. Coogan was described
by one critic as 'the Peter Sellers of the Nineties'.

In 2002 he married Miss Hickman, the great-niece of the late Roman
Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Basil Hume, and it seemed he had
finally found a replacement for Miss Cole.

Before they married, she had already forgiven him for straying once -
- again with a lapdancer. But when he did the same thing again after
18 months of marriage, hardly surprisingly she demanded a divorce.

'Steve was absolutely gutted when she refused to forgive him and to
this day he feels that she let him down,' says a friend of the
star. 'For the first time since Anna, he had found someone he
idolised.

'And that's the root of his problem. He either idolises women or
treats them like dirt. It is all to do with his Catholicism: he has
a classic Madonna/whore fixation.

'He put Anna and Caroline up on a pedestal and treated every other
woman he slept with like a prostitute. Despite everything he was
doing behind their backs, he never wanted to break up with either of
them.'

According to a woman who embarked on a fling with Coogan in the
Nineties, this is symptomatic of 'wider personality issues'.

'There are two sides to his personality: the sweet, charming
schoolboy, which is partly real and partly an act he uses to chat up
women, and the manic spoilt star,' she says. 'He is into some pretty
bizarre sexual games: but his real problem is not sex, it is drugs.

'He has a liking for cocaine, and though he tries to resist it, when
he falls off the wagon he just runs out of control.'

Coogan's penchant for the white stuff is well documented. The star
has admitted taking cocaine. Indeed, he ended up in hospital the
first time he tried it after suffering a violent reaction. He even
though he was allergic to the drug. But sadly the warning was not
heeded, and he went on to take it with increasing frequency.

Evidence of his behaviour while on drugs is damning. The Mail has
learned that at a recent party, to celebrate the birthday of one of
his close friends, he infuriated everybody by trying to bed his
friend's mother-in-law.

One friend says: 'Coke turns him into this sexual animal. If he's
talking to you and a woman with big boobs comes into the room, he
just walks away in mid sentence.

'Thankfully, we don't see as much of him any more because he is
mostly living in Los Angeles.'

Coogan moved to the West Coast last year to pursue a career in
Hollywood, and in many ways it has been a positive development in
his life. He reportedly earned GBP 3 million for playing Phileas
Fogg in the big-budget remake of Around The World In Eighty Days.

His reinvention as a serious actor has been boosted further by
appearances alongside Friends star Lisa Kudrow in Happy Endings, and
with Cate Blanchett in Coffee And Cigarettes.

'One of the most positive things is that nobody recognises him
there,' says a friend.

HE CAN walk down the street being followed by a camera crew and
nobody knows who he is. He is quietly obsessive about becoming a
movie star. He really wants to succeed, and goes on at length about
LA being a "blank canvas" and a "brave new world".

'The Americans see him as the quintessential Englishman. A charming,
polite and gently funny individual.

'He is so desperate to make it big in Hollywood that he works very
hard to be charming. And as anyone who has ever met him will tell
you, Steve can be very charming indeed when he turns it on.

'He was very disappointed that he didn't get to play Peter Sellers
in the biopic, but he'll get over it. Steve is incognito and rich.
His friends are Ben Stiller and Robbie Williams. Life is pretty good
at the moment.'

Not everyone is convinced that the move is for the best, however.

One woman, who knew him well at the height of his cocaine use,
says: 'Going to Los Angeles is one of the most disastrous things he
could have done in terms of his mental health.

'He has thrown himself into the LA life, living on cigarettes,
coffee and egg-white omelettes. He has a personal trainer, so he's
lost weight and toned up, and he has had his teeth whitened.

'But underneath it all, Steve does not look well. He is kind of
gaunt and his eyes have lost their sparkle.

'And LA has another, darker side. For all the fitness fanatics,
there are just as many troubled junkies. It is a pretty debauched
city -- and Steve has a dangerous appetite for the seedier side of
life.'

Which brings us, finally, to the tangled subject of Courtney Love
and her alleged love-child.

This is the widow of a heroinaddicted rock star who took his own
life with a shotgun. A longstanding addict herself, she has made a
string of court appearances on drug and assault charges.

She is currently in rehab and will be sent to jail if she fails to
complete the course. And her next job is to play the title role in a
biopic of Deep Throat porn actress Linda Lovelace.

She met Coogan when he was staying at the Sunset Marquis hotel in LA
last month. Reportedly, they embarked on a torrid affair which left
the troubled Love (who, incidentally, is the singer for a band
called Hole) carrying Coogan's child.

She has since denied the reports, though given her erratic behaviour
in recent times, this can hardly be taken at face value. Coogan's
spokesmen, meanwhile, have been trying to make the story disappear --
but without actually stating that it is untrue.

In these circumstances, most will hope the story is not true. Even
Alan Partridge wouldn't go that badly wrong.