Andrew Shepherd

PLAYED BY Michael Douglas

Andrew Shepherd isn't just a White House widower; he's also the planet's most eligible bachelor. In The American President (1995), Michael Douglas gets romantic-comic mileage out of the difficulties the most powerful man on the planet has in his courtship of a lovely lobbyist (Annette Bening), like having to interrupt a date in order to bomb Libya, or trying to cuddle in privacy at Camp David while surrounded by Secret Service agents and paparazzi. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's movie plays like a dry run for his series The West Wing, whose President Bartlet (played by American President's Chief of Staff Martin Sheen) is pretty much Andrew Shepherd without the libidinal baggage.

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