'Good Times' and 'Roots' star John Amos has died at the age of 84

John Amos, who played a stern patriarch on “Good Times,” America's first sitcom featuring a two-parent black family, and who starred on “Roots,” the slavery narrative that became America's most controversial in the late 1970s. became the most watched show, died in Los Angeles. He was 84.

His publicist, Belinda Foster, confirmed the death on Tuesday, saying he died on August 21. He did not specify the reason or why the announcement of his death was delayed.

Mr. Amos' acting career spanned more than five decades, with his breakthrough role as Gordie in the 1970 CBS comedy “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” working alongside Mary Richards, a colleague of meteorologist Ms. Moore, on a local television news program. After three seasons as producer, Mr. Amos left for “Good Times,” a Norman Lear production and spinoff of the producer's sitcom “Maude.”

Chronicling the trials and tribulations of a black working-class family living in the Chicago projects, “Good Times,” which ran from 1974-79 on CBS, did not shy away from the grim realities of life in public housing, touching on issues such as racial bigotry, drug addiction, Abuse and poverty — but all with humor.

Mr. Amos plays James Evans Sr., a soft-hearted strict disciplinarian who works odd jobs to support his wife, Florida Evans (Esther Roll), his sons Michael (Ralph Carter) and JJ (Jimmy Walker), and his daughter. , Thelma (born Nadette Stannis).

At one point, reminiscing about his roots with a childhood friend, James describes how he was so poor that while other kids had patches on their clothes, he “had patches on my patches!”

“Good Times” achieved high ratings and was credited with making television history – it was one of the first sitcoms with an all-black cast, before Mr. Lear's “The Jeffersons” (1975-85). But Ms. Rolle and Mr. Amos felt that there was still way to be made by black members of the production, and they pressed Mr. Lear to allow them to revise their scripts, which were originally written by white writers.

“They will go on about their credit,” Mr. Amos said of the writers in an interview with the SiriusXM program “Sway in the Morning.” Then he would ask them, “'Well, how long have you been black? It just doesn't happen in society. We don't think that way. We don't act that way. We don't let our children do that.'

His outspokenness, though at first welcomed, was eventually dismissed in 1976 for being a “disruptive element,” Mr. Amos said in a radio interview. He was written out from season 4, dying in an automobile accident.

“I had a way of expressing my differences with the script that wasn't acceptable to the creative staff,” Mr. Amos said.

“Roots,” a 1977 mini-series based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Alex Haley, is a family saga that begins with Kunta Kinte, a Mandinka teenager in the Gambia, who is captured there, chained to a ship in America, and 1700 Enslaved on a Southern plantation in the 1930s. It then follows his descendants from colonialism to the Civil War, Jim Crow, ending with Mr. Haley in modern times.

Mr. Amos was played as the older version of Kunta Kinte, with Levar Burton playing the younger one. The show garnered 37 primetime Emmy nominations — Mr. Amos received one for outstanding lead actor — and won nine. A record-breaking 100 million viewers tuned in for the final

The show's impact transcends ratings.

“Hundreds began college route courses,” Frank Rich, later New York Times critic and columnist, wrote in Time magazine. “The National Archives in Washington are inundated with citizen requests for information about their ancestors.”

The series “elevated the American consciousness” about the history of slavery and its modern-day impact, Mr. Amos told New York television channel NY1 in an interview in 2022, the 45th anniversary of “Roots.”

John Allen Amos Jr. was born on December 27, 1939 in Newark, NJ to John and Annabelle Amos and grew up in East Orange, NJ John Sr. was an auto mechanic. As a boy, John Jr. dreamed of becoming a football star.

After playing for Colorado State University, from which he graduated, and becoming a Golden Gloves boxing champion, he was signed by the Denver Broncos, but was released on the second day of training camp due to a hamstring injury. He later signed with the Kansas City Chiefs, but was released again.

After being cut from a team for the second time, and armed with a bottle of Jack Daniels while soaking in a tub, Mr. Amos recalled, he wrote a poem called “The Turk” about his failed athletic aspirations. He told the Los Angeles Times that before he left the Chiefs' yard, he recited the poem to the other players, who were “flabbergasted” by it. It gave him new confidence in his performance abilities, he said.

After working as a standup comic in New York on the Greenwich Village circuit, Mr. Amos found work in 1969 as a staff writer for “The Leslie Ughams Show,” a musical variety show. The 1971 Los Angeles comedy “Norman, Is That You?” by Ron Clark and Sam Bobrick.

He eventually landed the title role in the Albany, NY production of August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Fences” and played a father opposite Denzel Washington in Dennis McIntyre's police drama “Split Second.”

In the 1990s, Mr. Amos wrote and performed a one-man show, about an 87-year-old man re-encountering Halley's Comet when he was 11. (In 1999, he created the Haley's Comet Foundation to teach. He told Black Film how at-risk children are “a 68-foot ship that looks like a pirate ship.”

After the success of “Good Times” and “Roots,” Mr. Amos appeared in dozens of other TV shows in his 80s, including “The West Wing,” “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” “30 Rock,” “Two and a Half Men” and “Honest Gem.”

In film, he played Cleo McDowell, the father of Eddie Murphy's character's love interest in “Coming to America” ​​(1988) and collected numerous supporting parts, including “Locked Up” (1989) starring Sylvester Stallone; “Die Hard 2” (1990); and “Dr. Doolittle 3” (2006). He also appeared in a few TV movies such as “Disappearing Acts” (2000) starring Wesley Snipes.

In 2019, Mr. Amos played a small role in the movie “Uncut Gems” starring Adam Sandler.

She is survived by a daughter, Shannon, and a son, Kelly Christopher (who goes by Casey), both from her first marriage to Noel J. in 1965. With Mickelson. He had no children from his second marriage in 1978. Actress Lillian Lehman. Both marriages ended in divorce.

In 2023, a family feud arose between Shannon and Casey, who publicly accused each other of neglecting to provide adequate care for their father as his health deteriorated. Mr Amos dismissed the claims as “false and unfounded”. The Los Angeles Police Department closed their investigation into the matter in 2024, citing a lack of evidence.

In the early 2020s, Mr. Amos began working on a docuseries about their relationship with his son. It also provides a retrospective of his long career.

Casey Amos told People magazine in 2023, “We call it 'America's Dad,' because a lot of young people come up to me and say, 'Your dad was my dad.' Guys who look like ZZ top bearded bikers — come up to me and say, 'Can I hug you? Your father was my father.' And they just want a chance to shake his hand.

Kellyna Moore contributed reporting.