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STORY OF WHITE HOUSE BUTLER HEADED TO THEATERS: Columbia picks up life rights to Eugene Allen.
*Within two weeks of a Washington Post profile about Eugene Allen, a black man who served as a White House butler for 34 years, Columbia pictures has picked up rights to his life story for a feature film, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Allen started off as a White House "pantry man" in 1952 when blacks weren't allowed to use public restrooms in his native Virginia. He served presidents as racial history was being made, from Brown v. Board of Education to the 1963 March on Washington to the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and President John F. Kennedy. Allen left the job in 1986, when Ronald Reagan was in office.
Allen and his wife of 65 years talked and marveled at the fact that a black man could be president. But on Election Day, Allen cast his vote alone; his wife died the day before.
Wil Haygood, the author of the Nov. 7 Washington Post article, will act as an associate producer and help research the movie, working with family to bring out details of Allen's life.
Laura Ziskin, the film's producer, said the movie would act "as a portrait of an extraordinary African-American man who has lived to see the world turn. It's about the essence of this man and what he saw, as well as the love story with his wife."
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