A lovingly filmed version of the book by Lillian Rogers Parks, the crippled seamstress-maid who, along with her mother, served for fifty-two years as a White House domestic during eight presidential administrations. A mixture of pop history of the Twentieth Century and the private lives of the various First Families (as portrayed by an all-star cast) as seen through the eyes of the various maids and butlers, played by many of the same black actors who had appeared in and "died" in the initial "Roots" and thus were not available for the sequel to that miniseries that, in a programming "coincidence," premiered in part against "Backstairs at the White House". There were eleven Emmy Award nominations for the film: Outstanding Limited Series, Best Actress (Olivia Cole), Best Actor (Louis Gossett, Jr.), Best Supporting Actress (both Eileen Heckart and Celeste Holm), Best Supporting Actor (both Ed Flanders and Robert Vaughn), Outstanding Teleplay (Part 1),Outstanding Teleplay (Part 1), Outstanding Art Direction/ Set Decoration (Part 1), and two other technical awards. These made "Backstage at the White House" the single most honored program of the 1978-79 TV season.