John Amos, the TV author turned Emmy-nominated actor who starred because the stoic father on Good Occasions earlier than he was fired from the landmark sitcom for objecting to stereotypes and admittedly letting his mood get the most effective of him, has died. He was 84.
Amos died Aug. 21 in Los Angeles of pure causes, his son, Ok.C. Amos, introduced.
“It’s with heartfelt unhappiness that I share with you that my father has transitioned,” he mentioned in an announcement. “He was a person with the kindest coronary heart and a coronary heart of gold… and he was liked the world over. Many followers think about him their TV father. He lived a superb life. His legacy will stay on in his excellent works in tv and movie as an actor.”
Amos, who performed soccer at Colorado State College and had coaching camp tryouts with the Denver Broncos and Kansas Metropolis Chiefs of the American Soccer League, noticed his showbiz profession take off after he landed a gig to play WJN-TV weatherman Gordy Howard on The Mary Tyler Moore Present.
The New Jersey native obtained his Emmy nom for portraying Toby, the older model of Kunta Kinte, on the acclaimed 1977 ABC miniseries Roots, and he had a recurring function as Admiral Percy Fitzwallace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers, on NBC’s West Wing.
His profession on the large display screen started with Melvin Van Peebles’ blaxploitation traditional Candy Sweetback’s Baadasssss Track (1971), and he performed the supervisor of a McDonald’s-like restaurant who hires an African prince (Eddie Murphy) and his right-hand man (Arsenio Corridor) in Coming to America (1988).
A few years earlier, Amos had been within the McDonald’s coaching program earlier than showing as an worker for the fast-food chain in a widely known 1971 business (“Seize a bucket and mop, scrub the underside and prime!”) that he mentioned helped put his youngsters by way of faculty.
After exhibiting up a dozen occasions because the good-natured Gordy on the primary 4 seasons of The Mary Tyler Moore Present, the barrel-chested Amos was invited to learn for the a part of James Evans Sr., the husband of Esther Rolle’s Florida Evans and father of their three youngsters, on a brand new CBS sequence, Good Occasions.
The 1974-79 present, created by Eric Monte and Mike Evans and developed by Norman Lear, was set in an inner-city Chicago residence positioned within the tasks (assume Cabrini-Inexperienced). A by-product of Maude (itself a descendant of All within the Household), Good Occasions was the primary sitcom to middle on an African-American household.
“All people knew who Norman Lear was,” Amos mentioned in a 2014 interview for the Televison Academy Basis. “I’d seen the pilot episode of All within the Household and thought, ‘There’s no manner on this planet they’re going to place that on tv.’ … Certain sufficient, it turned a success.
“So I went in and skim with Miss Rolle for Norman Lear, with simply the three of us in his workplace. After we completed the studying, Norman checked out Esther, and Esther checked out me and checked out Norman and mentioned, ‘He’ll just do superb.’”
Amos starred on the present for 3 seasons, however he quickly disapproved of the foolish, stereotypical storylines that surrounded their oldest son on the sequence, J.J. — performed by the comedian Jimmie Walker — and he went public together with his criticism.
“We had a variety of variations,” he mentioned. “I felt an excessive amount of emphasis was being placed on J.J. in his rooster hat, saying ‘Dy-no-mite!’ each third web page. I felt simply as a lot emphasis and mileage may have been gotten out of my different two kids, one in all whom aspired to turn into a Supreme Courtroom justice, performed by Ralph Carter, and the opposite, BernNadette Stanis, who aspired to turn into a surgeon.
“However I wasn’t essentially the most diplomatic man in these days, and [the show’s producers] received uninterested in having their lives threatened over jokes. So that they mentioned, ‘Let you know what, why don’t we kill him off? We are able to get on with our lives!’ That taught me a lesson — I wasn’t as necessary as I believed I used to be to the present or to Norman Lear’s plans.”
James Evans Sr. was the sufferer of a automotive accident in a two-part episode that aired in September 1976 to kick off season 4.
John Alan Amos Jr. was born on Dec. 27, 1939, in Newark, New Jersey. His father drove a tractor-trailer and labored as a mechanic, and his mom, Annabelle, was a housekeeper who finally went again to high school and have become a nutritionist.
His mother cleaned the house 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 Present at Radio Metropolis Music Corridor in New York Metropolis. “It blew my creativeness broad open,” he mentioned.
“I used to be disillusioned in a manner, as a result of none of them appeared like Archie or Jughead or Veronica … A few of the magic disappeared, however the science of the trade turned obvious to me.”
At East Orange Excessive Faculty, Amos drew cartoons and wrote columns for the college newspaper, performed a convict in a manufacturing of The Man Who Got here to Dinner and was a star operating again.
Amos received soccer scholarships to Lengthy Seaside Metropolis Faculty in California after which Colorado State College, the place the Rams had the longest shedding streak within the nation on the time.
“God saved telling me, ‘I don’t need you enjoying soccer,’” he mentioned. “The path I used to be getting from above was to be a performer, to be a author, one thing that I had all the time finished and got here simple for me.”
Nonetheless, Amos didn’t surrender his dream of enjoying professional soccer, signing his first free-agent contract with the Broncos. (One in every of his coaching camp teammates was Ernie Barnes, whose portray, Sugar Shack, appeared within the opening credit of Good Occasions.)
Amos performed or tried out to play with many groups, together with the Norfolk Neptunes of the Continental Soccer League and the British Columbia Lions of the Canadian Soccer League.
After the Chiefs minimize him for a second time, Coach Hank Stram allowed him to learn a poem about shattered goals to the gamers — and he obtained a standing ovation. “It was the primary affirmation I received from my friends that I may write materials that would evoke feelings in folks,” he mentioned. “It was very gratifying, far more so than operating off-tackle or making an attempt to choose up a blitz.”
(Amos would play a retired participant fighting accidents from his NFL days on the HBO sequence Ballers.)
In Vancouver, Amos did stand-up and met a tv author who inspired him to come back to Los Angeles, the place he landed a writing and performing job on a syndicated TV selection present hosted by radio personalities Al Lohman and Roger Barkley. (Additionally getting their begins on that program: McLean Stevenson, Craig T. Nelson and Barry Levinson.)
That in flip led to work writing and performing in sketches on the 1969 CBS selection program The Leslie Uggams Present. Two producers there, Lorenzo Music and Dave Davis, have been serving to to develop a sequence for Mary Tyler Moore and thought he’d be nice for that.
“They may very simply have mentioned, ‘Nicely, [Gordy] generally is a sports activities announcer.’ That might have been [as easy as] falling off a log for me,” he recalled. “I appreciated the truth that he was a meteorologist; that implied the person may assume.”
On the 1973-74 season of Maude, Amos appeared on three episodes as Florida’s husband, establishing the launch of Good Occasions.
James Evans struggled to seek out full-time work, however “he offered for his household with any job that he may discover. We managed to outlive, and America liked that present. It was near how most Individuals lived at the moment.”
In his 2014 TV Academy Basis interview, Amos received emotional when he famous that he had “younger males, of their 30s and 40, of each ethnicity conceivable, come as much as me and say, ‘You’re the dad I by no means had.’”
After he left Good Occasions, Lear’s firm employed him to play a congressman on the pilot for a brand new present known as Onward and Upward. However he would stop that venture as effectively.
Amos had traveled a number of occasions to Africa, together with residing for months at a time in Liberia “to soak up the tradition of the continent that I had come from, not directly,” when he was approached to look in Roots.
“It was simply what I wanted,” he mentioned. “It took the dangerous style of Good Occasions out of my mouth — not that Good Occasions had been all dangerous, however the circumstances below which I left and the acrimony between Norman Lear and myself … I notice that a variety of it I introduced on myself. I used to be not the best man on this planet to get together with, or to direct. I challenged any and all people. [Roots] was a vindication, an amazing feeling of satisfaction.”
He and Lear finally received over it, and Amos starred for the producer in a short-lived 1994 sitcom, 704 Hauser, a few liberal household residing in Archie Bunker’s former home in Queens.
Amos additionally had recurring roles on different TV reveals like The Contemporary Prince of Bel-Air, on which he performed Will Smith’s stepfather; Hunter; The District; Males in Timber; All In regards to the Andersons, as Anthony Anderson’s dad; and the Netflix drama The Ranch.
His movie résumé additionally included The World’s Best Athlete (1973), Let’s Do It Once more (1975), The Beastmaster (1982), Die Exhausting 2 (1990), Ricochet (1991), Mac (1992), Evening Lure (1993), For Higher or Worse (1995), The Gamers Membership (1998), Coming to America 2 (2021) and Due to Charley (2021).
In 1972, he appeared on Broadway in Powerful to Get Assist, directed by Carl Reiner.
When he discovered it robust to get work within the Nineties, Amos wrote and starred within the one-man play Halley’s Comet, about an 87-year-old man who ruminates concerning the state of the world whereas he waits within the woods for the approaching of “the comet.” He toured everywhere in the U.S. and in a number of abroad cities with the play for greater than 20 years.
Extra just lately, he and his son produced the documentary America’s Dad.
Along with Ok.C. (nicknamed for Amos’ days with the Chiefs), survivors embrace his daughter, Shannon, each from his first marriage to Noel “Noni” Mickelson. THR’s Gary Baum wrote about his youngsters’ acrimonious relationship in November.
Amos additionally was briefly married to actress Lillian Lehman, who performed Andre Braugher’s mom on Males of a Sure Age.
Duane Byrge contributed to this report.
