Eugene Allen

Eugene Charles Allen (July 14, 1919 – March 31, 2010) was an American waiter and butler who worked for the US government at the White House for 34 years until he retired as the head butler in 1986.

Allen's life was the inspiration for the 2013 film The Butler.

Life Allen was born in Buckingham County, Virginia and raised on Shirland Farm, a sharecropping plantation near Scottsville.

He started in the White House in 1952 as a "pantry man", a job which involved basic tasks such as dish washing, stocking and polishing silverware. Over the years Allen rose in his position, becoming the butler to the president.

Allen was particularly affected by the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. According to his son, "My father came home late on the day that President Kennedy had been shot. But then he got up and put his coat back on. He said, 'I've got to go back to work.' But in the hallway, he fell against the wall and started crying. That was the first time in my life I had ever seen my father cry." He was invited to the funeral, but chose to stay at work to prepare for the reception, because "Someone had to be at the White House to serve everyone after they came from the funeral." Reagan invited Allen and his wife Helene to a state dinner in honor of Helmut Kohl at the White House. Allen was the first White House butler ever to be invited as a guest to a state dinner. He retired in 1986, after he worked for Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan, a total of eight presidents.

Allen was married to his wife, Helene, for 65 years. They met at a birthday party in Washington in 1942, and married a year later in 1943. The couple had one son, Charles Allen. He and his wife had intended to vote for Barack Obama in 2008, but she died the day before the election, on November 3.

Allen died of kidney failure at the Washington Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park, Maryland on March 31, 2010.

Allen's life was the inspiration for the 2013 film The Butler. The film departs from the facts of Allen's life. The central character, "Cecil Gaines", is only loosely based on the real Allen.