https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/john-amos-dead-good-times-roots-1236019054/
John Amos, ‘Good Times’ Dad, Dies at 84
He played Gordy the weatherman on 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' and earned an Emmy nom for his turn as the older Kunta Kinte on 'Roots.'
BY MIKE BARNES
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OCTOBER 1, 2024 10:49AM
John Amos, the TV writer turned Emmy-nominated actor who starred as the
stoic father on Good Times before he was fired from the landmark sitcom for objecting to stereotypes and admittedly letting his temper get the best of
him, has died. He was 84.
Amos died Aug. 21 in Los Angeles of natural causes, his son, K.C. Amos, announced.
“It is with heartfelt sadness that I share with you that my father has transitioned,” he said in a statement. “He was a man with the kindest heart and a heart of gold… and he was loved the world over. Many fans consider
him their TV father. He lived a good life. His legacy will live on in his outstanding works in television and film as an actor.”
Amos, who played football at Colorado State University and had training
camp tryouts with the Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League, saw his showbiz career take off after he landed a gig to
play WJN-TV weatherman Gordy Howard on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
The New Jersey native received his Emmy nom for portraying Toby, the older version of Kunta Kinte, on the acclaimed 1977 ABC miniseries Roots, and he
had a recurring role as Admiral Percy Fitzwallace, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, on NBC’s West Wing.
His career on the big screen began with Melvin Van Peebles’ blaxploitation classic Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971), and he played the manager of a McDonald’s-like restaurant who hires an African prince (Eddie Murphy) and his right-hand man (Arsenio Hall) in Coming to America (1988).
Many years earlier, Amos had been in the McDonald’s training program before appearing as an employee for the fast-food chain in a well-known 1971 commercial (“Grab a bucket and mop, scrub the bottom and top!”) that he said helped put his kids through college.
After showing up a dozen times as the good-natured Gordy on the first four seasons of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, the barrel-chested Amos was invited
to read for the part of James Evans Sr., the husband of Esther Rolle’s Florida Evans and father of their three kids, on a new CBS series, Good
Times.
The 1974-79 show, created by Eric Monte and Mike Evans and developed by
Norman Lear, was set in an inner-city Chicago apartment located in the
projects (think Cabrini-Green). A spinoff of Maude (itself a descendant of
All in the Family), Good Times was the first sitcom to center on an African-American family.
“Everybody knew who Norman Lear was,” Amos said in a 2014 interview for the Televison Academy Foundation. “I’d seen the pilot episode of All in the Family and thought, ‘There’s no way in the world they’re going to put that
on television.’ … Sure enough, it became a hit.
“So I went in and read with Miss Rolle for Norman Lear, with just the three of us in his office. When we finished the reading, Norman looked at Esther,
and Esther looked at me and looked at Norman and said, ‘He’ll do just fine.'”
Amos starred on the show for three seasons, but he soon disapproved of the silly, stereotypical storylines that surrounded their oldest son on the
series, J.J. — played by the comic Jimmie Walker — and he went public with his criticism.
“We had a number of differences,” he said. “I felt too much emphasis was being put on J.J. in his chicken hat, saying ‘Dy-no-mite!’ every third page. I felt just as much emphasis and mileage could have been gotten out
of my other two children, one of whom aspired to become a Supreme Court justice, played by Ralph Carter, and the other, BernNadette Stanis, who
aspired to become a surgeon.
“But I wasn’t the most diplomatic guy in those days, and [the show’s producers] got tired of having their lives threatened over jokes. So they
said, ‘Tell you what, why don’t we kill him off? We can get on with our lives!’ That taught me a lesson — I wasn’t as important as I thought I was
to the show or to Norman Lear’s plans.”
James Evans Sr. was the victim of a car accident in a two-part episode that aired in September 1976 to kick off season four.
John Alan Amos Jr. was born on Dec. 27, 1939, in Newark, New Jersey. His
father drove a tractor-trailer and worked as a mechanic, and his mother, Annabelle, was a housekeeper who eventually went back to school and became
a nutritionist.
His mom cleaned the home of a cartoonist who drew for the Archie comics,
and that led to Amos and a buddy attending a taping of radio’s The Archie Show at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. “It blew my imagination
wide open,” he said.
“I was disappointed in a way, because none of them looked like Archie or Jughead or Veronica … Some of the magic disappeared, but the science of the industry became apparent to me.”
At East Orange High School, Amos drew cartoons and wrote columns for the
school newspaper, played a convict in a production of The Man Who Came to Dinner and was a star running back.
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