John Amos, star of ‘Good Times,’ ‘Roots’ and ‘Coming to America,’ dies at 84
John Amos, the prolific actor known for his work in the sitcoms “Good Times” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” the movie “Coming to America” and the miniseries “Roots,” has died. He was 84.
Amos’ publicist, Belinda Foster, confirmed to The Times on Tuesday that the actor died of natural causes on Aug. 21. Additional details were not revealed.
For three years and three seasons, Amos was adored by audiences around the country as the tough-loving patriarch of the Evans family on the 1970s sitcom “Good Times.” Amos played James Evans, a hard-working Korean War veteran with a withering stare and sharp wit who did everything he could to provide for his family.
Like any great TV dad, Amos loved all his TV children equally — which became a point of contention behind the scenes when the scripts started focusing more and more on the comedic antics of the eldest Evans child, J.J. (Jimmie “JJ” Walker). In a 2014 interview with the Television Academy, Amos recalled expressing concerns about the show placing “too much emphasis ... on J.J. and his chicken hat” while neglecting James Evans’ “other two children.”
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According to Amos, his creative differences with the “Good Times” producers — including the legendary Norman Lear — led to him being labeled a “disruptive factor” and getting fired from the show. Lear personally called Amos to deliver the news.
“I didn’t curse or anything. I just hung up the phone,” Amos told the Television Academy.
“And he didn’t call me back to see if I might have anything else to say. I never heard from him again for months and months and months.”
Amos bounced back from termination swiftly and triumphantly, landing an Emmy nomination in 1977 for his powerful portrayal of adult Kunta Kinte in “Roots,” the groundbreaking miniseries about slavery based on Alex Haley’s novel of the same name.
Before he was cast as the show’s main character (along with LeVar Burton, who played young Kunta Kinte), Amos auditioned for two other parts. When he was finally invited to read for the “once-in-a-lifetime role” of Kinte, Amos “almost fainted.”
If you were anywhere near a television in January 1977, you were probably watching “Roots.”
“I couldn’t believe it,” he told the TV Academy in 2014. “It was like I’d hit the lottery.”
Amos was well aware of the impact his performance and “Roots” had on viewers, who let him know in real time how deeply moved they were by Kinte’s revolutionary story.
“I was on the freeway and this big brother pulls up next to me in this piece of ancient Detroit steel,” Amos recalled in an interview with The Times 40 years after “Roots” premiered.
“He said, ‘Man, pull over!’ So I pulled the car over. He said, ‘Hey, man, I watched that “Roots” on TV last night, man. Man, it really affected me … I was halfway through it and I went and got my .38 and I went and shot the TV!’ That was the funniest thing that happened. I hope he wasn’t looking for me to reimburse him.”
Ernie Barnes’ iconic 1976 painting ‘The Sugar Shack’ sold for a record-setting $15.2 million for the late artist, whose work was featured in ‘Good Times.’
Amos was born Dec. 27, 1939, in Newark, N.J. He attended East Orange High School, where he played football at the same time singer Dionne Warwick was a cheerleader, according to the New York Times.
For a while, Amos stayed on the athletic track. He was a running back at Colorado State before trying out unsuccessfully for the Denver Broncos and getting cut from the Kansas City Chiefs after tearing his Achilles tendon — a season-ending injury. Amos credited former Chiefs coach Hank Stram with helping him realize his true passion.
“Young man, you are not a football player,” Stram told him. “You are a young man who happens to be playing football.”
While grieving the imminent loss of his football career, Amos wrote a poem that Stram permitted him to read aloud for his teammates. The team gave him a standing ovation.
“When [Stram] saw the team’s reaction to the poem he said, ‘I think you have another calling,’” Amos recalled in 2012.
For a movie about the creator of some of the most pointed, controversial comedies in television history, “Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You” has a curious habit of sidestepping some of the thornier and more interesting aspects of its subject’s life.
Upon leaving the NFL, Amos pivoted to copywriting before moonlighting as a comedy writer for the small screen. He launched his entertainment career as a staff writer for the 1969 CBS musical variety series “The Leslie Uggams Show.”
By 1970, Amos booked his first major acting role as Gordy the weatherman on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” after some writers working simultaneously on “Uggams” and “Mary Tyler Moore” determined he would be perfect for the part.
“Quite frankly I never looked back after that,” Amos told the Los Angeles Times in 2012.
Amos went on to appear in dozens of seminal TV series, including “Good Times,” “Roots,” “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” “Sanford and Son,” “Hunter” and “The West Wing,” in which he portrayed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Percy “Fitz” Fitzwallace.
John Amos of ‘Good Times,’ ‘Roots’ and ‘Coming to America’ fame said Monday that reports about elder neglect are “false and unmerited.” LAPD is investigating his daughter’s claims.
Amid the high-stakes political drama of the landmark show about a fictional president and his staff, Admiral Fitzwallace was often the voice of reason that could command a room as effectively as Amos could command the screen.
“That role of Admiral Percy Fitzwallace ... is one I would have paid them to do,” Amos told the TV Academy.
“The uniform in itself was one thing, all that salad dressing — fruit salad, we’d call it — his medals. Once I put that jacket on, I became the commander in chief.”
Once a TV writer himself, Amos never missed an opportunity to give props to the creators — even Lear, who eventually reunited with the ousted “Good Times” star for “704 Hauser.” The short-lived series starred Amos as the liberal father of a young conservative activist living in Archie Bunker’s old house in Queens.
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“I matured to the point if I had creative differences, I would say ‘Norman, can I speak to you?’ instead of threatening to do bodily harm,” Amos joked in a 2012 interview with The Times.
The actor was married twice: First to Noel J. Mickelson, the mother of his two children, from 1965 to 1975, then briefly to actor Lillian Lehman in the late 1970s. Mickelson died in 2016.
More recently, Amos denied reports made in 2023 by his daughter, Shannon, accusing her brother, Kelly “K.C.” Amos, of neglect and not providing proper care for their father. The elder Amos was hospitalized in 2023 but recovered after treatment for fluid accumulation in his lower body.
“I will say this for now: This story about neglect is false and unmerited,” Amos said in a statement in March after the LAPD opened an investigation into the allegations. “The real truth will come out soon and you will hear it from me. Believe it.”
In addition to his extensive work on the small screen, Amos appeared in a number of films, such as “Coming to America.” He portrayed Cleo McDowell, restaurateur and father of Eddie Murphy’s love interest, in the classic 1988 comedy.
“Roots” premiered on ABC in January 1977, just a few months after Alex Haley published the historical novel upon which it was based -- a phenomenon on the back of a phenomenon.
Even after his acting career took off, Amos didn’t stop writing. For decades, he traveled around the United States performing a one-man show he had penned about an 87-year-old man awaiting the return of Halley’s Comet.
Amos told the Television Academy in 2014 that he wanted to be remembered as “a guy that made people laugh” and “made people think.”
“I’d just like to be remembered as someone they enjoyed watching and they enjoyed having in their homes,” he said.
“That’s a good feeling, to know that some stranger sitting in some remote town somewhere laughed to the point that he forgot his ongoing miseries or problems and said to his family, ‘Hey, John Amos is on. Come in here! Let’s get a laugh.’ I mean, is there anything better than that?”
Amos had continued working well into the years preceding his death, appearing in several films including “The Last Rifleman” in 2023 and HBO’s “The Righteous Gemstones” in 2022. Months before his death, Amos was set to guest star in NBC’s “Suits: L.A.,” a spinoff series to USA Network’s “Suits.”
Former staff writer Susan King contributed to this report.
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