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Former Marcus Welby star James Brolin played the part of Ronald Reagan and Judy Davis was Nancy Reagan in the film, which covered the period from 1949 when Reagan was still in Hollywood, through his governorship of California until Reagan's last day in office as President in 1989.
About a month before the movie was scheduled to air, portions of the script were leaked. As a result of these stories, the miniseries began to be widely criticized by conservatives as an unfair and inaccurate depiction of Reagan. CBS representatives claimed that the network had ordered a love story about Ronald and Nancy Reagan with politics as a backdrop, but instead received an overtly political film. Supporters of the film claimed that these criticisms were simply partisan bias, and were an attempt to censor a film because it did not always portray the former president in a positive light. Some conservative groups claimed that the script put words in Reagan's mouth and condemned it as "leftist" historical revisionism. Some of the criticism was based upon early drafts of the script and featured scenes that were not shot or were dropped from the final version. Eventually, after several weeks of criticism, on November 4, 2003, CBS withdrew the broadcast saying that it did "not present a balanced portrayal of the Reagans." The network chose instead to broadcast the miniseries on the cable channel Showtime. In a statement on its web site, CBS said:
"CBS will not broadcast The Reagans on November 16 and 18. This decision is based solely on our reaction to seeing the final film, not the controversy that erupted around a draft of the script. Although the mini-series features impressive production values and acting performances, and although the producers have sources to verify each scene in the script, we believe it does not present a balanced portrayal of the Reagans for CBS and its audience. Subsequent edits that we considered did not address those concerns. A free broadcast network, available to all over the public airwaves, has different standards than media the public must pay to view. We do, however, recognize and respect the filmmakers' right to have their voice heard and their film seen."
Jeff Chester, head of the Center for Digital Democracy, a communications lobbying group, said that CBS had chosen not to offend Republicans at a time when the federal government was considering rules restricting ownership of local television stations. CBS executives "made a business decision," he said. "In doing so, they clearly caved in to the political pressure." Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader of the time, commented that the decision "smells of intimidation to me."
One of the most controversial points in the script, and often the only one referred to in media reports, was the depiction of Reagan telling his wife during a conversation about AIDS patients, "They that live in sin shall die in sin."The screenwriters admitted that there was no evidence that Reagan ever said this. This line was dropped in the Showtime and DVD versions of the film.
Reagan was played by James Brolin, whose wife Barbra Streisand is an outspoken liberal. Brolin would later play Governor Robert Ritchie, a fictional Republican candidate for the Presidency in The West Wing, while his son Josh would play the 43rd President George W. Bush in the 2008 Oliver Stone film W.
Following is the only video clip I could find from the movie: