The Butler


The Butler is a 2013 American historical drama film directed and co-produced by Lee Daniels and written by Danny Strong. It is inspired by Wil Haygood's Washington Post article "A Butler Well Served by This Election".
Loosely based on the real life of Eugene Allen, who worked in the White House for decades, the film stars Forest Whitaker as Cecil Gaines, an African American who is a witness of notable political and social events of the 20th century during his 34-year tenure serving as a White House butler. In addition to Whitaker, the film's ensemble cast features Oprah Winfrey, Mariah Carey, John Cusack, Nelsan Ellis, Jane Fonda, Cuba Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard, Minka Kelly, Elijah Kelley, Lenny Kravitz, James Marsden, David Oyelowo, Alex Pettyfer, Vanessa Redgrave, Alan Rickman, Liev Schreiber, Robin Williams and Clarence Williams III. It was the last film produced by Laura Ziskin, who died on June 12, 2011. It was also the final film appearance of Clarence Williams III, who retired from acting in 2018 and died on June 4, 2021.
The film was theatrically released by the Weinstein Company on August 16, 2013, to mostly positive reviews from critics, with many praising the cast but criticizing the historical accuracy. The film was a commercial success, grossing more than $177 million worldwide against a budget of $30 million.

Plot

In 2009, an elderly Cecil Gaines recounts his life story while waiting at the White House to meet the newly inaugurated president. Cecil was born and raised on a cotton plantation in Macon, Georgia to Black sharecroppers during the Jim Crow era. In 1926, when Cecil was seven, the white landowner, Thomas Westfall, rapes Cecil's mulatto mother, Hattie. Cecil's father, Earl, confronts Thomas and is killed. Cecil is taken in by Thomas' elderly mother, Annabeth, who is also the estate's matron. Annabeth trains Cecil to be a house servant.
In 1937, at age 18, Cecil leaves the plantation. Desperately hungry, he breaks into a hotel pastry shop. The elderly master-servant Maynard takes pity on him and gives him a job. Cecil learns advanced serving and interpersonal skills from Maynard, who later recommends Cecil for a position in a Washington, D.C., hotel. While working there, Cecil meets and marries Gloria, and the couple have two sons, Louis and Charlie.
In 1957, Cecil is hired by the White House during Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration. White House maître d'hôtel Freddie Fallows introduces him to head butler Carter Wilson and co-worker James Holloway. Cecil witnesses Eisenhower's reluctance to use troops to enforce school desegregation, then his resolve to uphold the law by racially integrating Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas.
Louis, the Gaineses' elder son, becomes a university student at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, although Cecil feels that the South is too volatile. Louis joins the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, activist James Lawson's student program, which leads to a nonviolent sit-in at a segregated diner, where he is arrested. Gloria, who feels that Cecil puts his job ahead of her, descends into alcoholism.
In 1961, after John F. Kennedy's inauguration, Louis and others are attacked by members of the Ku Klux Klan while on a freedom ride to Birmingham, Alabama. Louis participates in the 1963 Birmingham Children's Crusade, where dogs and water cannons are used to stop the marchers, an action that inspires Kennedy to deliver a national address proposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
After Kennedy is assassinated, his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, enacts the legislation. As a goodwill gesture, Jackie Kennedy gives Cecil one of the former president's neckties.
Louis participates in the 1965 Selma Voting Rights Movement, which inspires Johnson to demand that Congress enact the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965. Johnson also gives Cecil a tie bar.
In the late 1960s, after civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, Louis tells his family that he has joined the Black Panthers. Cecil orders Louis and his girlfriend to leave his house. Louis is again arrested. Cecil becomes aware of President Richard Nixon's plans to suppress the Black Panthers.
Charlie confides to Louis that he plans to join the war in Vietnam. After enlisting, he is killed and buried at Arlington National Cemetery. When the Black Panthers resort to violence, Louis leaves the organization and returns to college, earning his master's degree in political science and eventually running for a seat in Congress, although Cecil continues to resent him.
Cecil repeatedly approaches his White supervisor at the White House over the unequal pay and career advancement provided to the Black White House staff. With President Ronald Reagan's support, Cecil prevails, his reputation growing to the point that he and his wife are invited by the Reagans to be guests at a state dinner. Cecil becomes uncomfortable with the class divisions in the White House. After witnessing Reagan's refusal to support economic sanctions against apartheid South Africa for racial segregation, he resigns.
Gloria encourages Cecil to mend his relationship with Louis. Realizing that his son's actions are heroic, he joins him at a protest against South African apartheid; they are arrested and jailed together.
In 2008, Gloria dies shortly before Barack Obama is elected as the nation's first Black president. Two months, two weeks and one day later, Cecil prepares to meet the newly inaugurated President, wearing the articles that he received from Kennedy and Johnson. White House Chief Usher Stephen W. Rochon approaches him, telling him that the president is ready and preparing to show him the way to the Oval Office. Cecil tells him that he knows the way and walks down the hall to the office.

Cast

  • Forest Whitaker as Cecil Gaines, the film's main character, who dedicates his life to becoming a professional domestic worker ever since he was 7 years old. He is based on real life American waiter and butler Eugene Allen.
  • *Michael Rainey Jr. and Aml Ameen portray Cecil at ages 7 and 18, respectively.
;Gaines's private life
  • Oprah Winfrey as Gloria Gaines, Cecil Gaines's wife.
  • David Oyelowo as Louis Gaines, the Gaineses' elder son.
  • Elijah Kelley as Charlie Gaines, the Gaineses' younger son.
  • * Isaac White portrays him at age 10.
  • Alex Pettyfer as Thomas Westfall, the brutal plantation owner who kills Earl after raping Hattie.
  • David Banner as Earl Gaines, Cecil's father and a sharecropper.
  • Mariah Carey as Hattie Pearl, Cecil's mother and a sharecropper.
  • Terrence Howard as Howard, the Gaineses' neighbor who romantically pursues Gloria.
  • Adriane Lenox as Gina, Howard's wife.
  • Yaya DaCosta as Carol Hammie, Louis's girlfriend.
  • Vanessa Redgrave as Annabeth Westfall, Thomas Westfall's elderly mother and a matron on the plantation.
  • Clarence Williams III as Maynard, an elderly man who mentors young Cecil and introduces him to his profession.
;White House co-workers
  • Cuba Gooding Jr. as Carter Wilson, the fast-talking head butler at the White House, with whom Cecil forms a close friendship.
  • Lenny Kravitz as James Holloway, a co-worker butler of Cecil's at the White House.
  • Colman Domingo as Freddie Fallows, the White House maitre d' who hires Cecil.
;White House historical figures
;Civil rights historical figures
Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama and civil rights leader Jesse Jackson are depicted in archival footage.
Melissa Leo and Orlando Eric Street were cast as First Lady Mamie Eisenhower and Barack Obama, respectively, but did not appear in the finished film.

Production

Development

's screenplay is inspired by Wil Haygood's Washington Post article "A Butler Well Served by This Election". The project received initial backing in early 2011 when producers Laura Ziskin and Pam Williams approached Sheila Johnson for help financing the film. After reading Danny Strong's screenplay, Johnson invested $2.7 million before bringing in several African American investors. However, Ziskin died from cancer in June 2011. This left director Daniels and producing partner Hilary Shor to look further for producers. They started with Cassian Elwes, with whom they were working on The Paperboy. Elwes joined the list of producers and began fundraising for the film.
In spring 2012, AI Film, a British financing and production company, added a $6 million guarantee against foreign pre-sales. Finally, the film raised its requisite $30 million budget through 41 producers and executive producers, including Earl W. Stafford, Harry I. Martin Jr., Brett Johnson, Michael Finley and Buddy Patrick. Thereafter, as film production started, Weinstein Co. picked up U.S. distribution rights for the film. David Glasser, Weinstein Co. COO, called fundraising as an independent film "a story that's a movie within itself".
The Weinstein Company acquired the distribution rights for the film after Columbia Pictures put the film in turnaround.
The film's title was up for a possible renaming due to a Motion Picture Association claim from Warner Bros., which had inherited from the defunct Lubin Company a now-lost 1916 silent short film with the same name. The case was subsequently resolved with the MPAA granting The Weinstein Company permission to add Lee Daniels in front of the title, under the condition that his name was "75% the size of The Butler. On July 23, 2013, the distributor unveiled a revised poster, displaying the title as Lee Daniels' The Butler.