[4] Allen was born in Buckingham County, Virginia and raised on Shirland Farm near Scottsville.

[5] 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.

[7] Allen finally attained the most prestigious rank of butlers serving in the White House, Maître d'hôtel, in 1981, during the presidency of Ronald Reagan.

[8] Reagan invited Allen and his wife Helene to a state dinner in honor of Helmut Kohl at the White House.

[7] 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.

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

It placed Allen's life in the context of changing race relations and the personalities of the presidents he'd served.

Columbia Pictures bought the film rights to Allen's life story, and he was invited to Obama's inauguration, where he commented, "That's the man...Whew, I'm telling you, it's something to see.