Former First Lady 'hurt' by Reagan TV portrayal

Nancy Reagan is said to be anguished and "hurt" by an American TV portrayal of her husband’s time in the White House.

CBS is preparing to broadcast a two-part mini-series called The Reagans, which shows him as callously uncaring towards sufferers of Aids.

Ronald Reagan, 92, has not appeared in public in a decade and is stricken by Alzheimer’s disease.

In one scene in the programme Mr Reagan reportedly describes himself as the "anti-Christ" at the height of the Iran-Contra affair.

The New York Times, which claims to have seen the script, said that the programme shows Mrs Reagan, 82, as "a control addict who set the President’s schedule based on her astrologer’s advice".

A friend of the former First Lady, TV host and entrepreneur Merv Griffin, told a US talk show: "I talk to her quite often. She’s hurt.

"Here is a man who is on his deathbed. He’s in the last stages of Alzheimer’s with a woman who has been sitting by the bedside there holding his hand for nine years.

"They can’t fight back."

Their son Michael Reagan said he expected the programme to be "largely unfavourable to my dad".

The programme, due to be broadcast on November 16 and 18, stars James Brolin, the husband of Barbra Streisand, as Mr Reagan and Australian-born actress Judy Davis as his wife.

In one scene Mr Reagan, speaking of the growing Aids epidemic reportedly says: "They that live in sin shall die in sin."

In another, he breaks down when the Iran-Contra scandal unfolds and tells his wife that he will be seen as the "anti-Christ".

The programme also suggests that Mr Reagan, who was in the White House from 1981 to 1989, may have started developing Alzheimer’s in the mid-1980s.