George Hamilton portrays Hank Williams in "Your Cheatin' Heart". Susan Oliver enacts Audrey, the girl he met while he was performing in a travelling medicine show and whom he married soon after. At the time he was so broke he had to substitute an iron washer for a wedding ring. Red Buttons is seen as Shorty Younger, the trouper who became Hank's life-long friend and who tried desperately to rehabilitate him when success robbed him of his touch with the common folk and he turned to drink. Arthur O'Connell has the role of Fred Rose, the successful music publisher, who gave Williams his first break.

The story of "Your Cheatin' Heart" faithfully traces the steps of Hank's eventful life from the beginning as a shoe-shine boy, his early success on the popular Louisiana Hayride radio program, his rise to wealth and fame, crowned by his triumph with the Grand Ole Opry, top show in the country-western music field. But although his professional success soared, his personal life and marriage collapsed and not even the birth of a son, Hank, Jr. failed to bring him out of his alcoholic rut.

Desperately, Hank tries to get hold of himself and make a fresh start, and almost succeeds. But it is his very popularity and integrity which proves his undoing in the final moving sequences of the story.