Who’s Eugene Allen?

He worked as a butler in the White House for 34 years and recently sold the movie rights to his story to Columbia Pictures.

There’s a small writeup about it here, but the Washington Post has a much nicer write up here which comes with a nice photo gallery.

Two parts of the story stood out.  He had the same birthday as President Ford, and Mrs Ford was the only one who remembered it at the time.  Also, Nancy Reagan invited him to eat at a state dinner with her and her husband right before he retired.  He said he was probably the first butler to ever be invited to a state dinner.