by Gemma Greene, BDO Staff Writer
John Amos, the legendary Emmy-nominated actor who starred as the hard-nosed, street smart father on the hit show “Good Times” has passed away. He was 84.
Amos actually passed away over a month ago on August 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.”
How Did He Get His Start in Acting?
Before pursuing acting, he moved to New York and was a social worker at the Vera Institute of Justice, working with defendants at the Brooklyn House of Detention.
Amos, whose original plan was to play professional football, played football at Colorado State University and had training camp tryouts with the Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League. He graduated from Colorado State University with a sociology degree. But at a chance audition, he saw his television career take off after he landed a role to play WJM-TV weatherman Gordy Howard on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
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 ’70s commercial (“Grab a bucket and mop, scrub the bottom and top!”) that he said helped put his kids through college.
The Impact of ‘Good Times’ on Black Culture
After showing up a dozen times as the good-natured Gordy on the first four seasons of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, 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.”
“That show was the closest depiction in reality to life as an African American family living in those circumstances as it could be,” Amos told Time magazine in 2021.
“Many fans consider him their TV father,” his son Kelly Christopher Amos said in a statement. “He lived a good life. His legacy will live on in his outstanding works in television and film as an actor. My father loved working as an actor throughout his entire life He was my dad, my best friend, and my hero.”
His career on the movie screen began with Melvin Van Peebles‘ blaxploitation classic Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971). From there he landed many roles including playing the manager of a McDonald’s-like restaurant who hired an African prince (Eddie Murphy) and his right-hand man (Arsenio Hall) in Coming to America(1988) and its 2020 sequel, Coming 2 America.
Among Amos’ film credits also include Let’s Do It Again with Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier, Die Hard 2, Madea’s Witness Protection and Uncut Gems with Adam Sandler. He was in countless videos including Ice Cube and Dr. Dre’s 1994 video “Natural Born Killaz.” He also had a recurring role as Admiral Percy Fitzwallace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on NBC’s West Wing.
He Had Out-of-Body Experience He Had While Filming “Roots”
Many people never forget that the New Jersey native received his Emmy nom for portraying Toby, the older version of Kunta Kinte, on the acclaimed 1977 ABC miniseries Roots.
Roots received 37 Emmy Award nominations and won nine. It also won a Golden Globe and a Peabody Award. Roots finale episode still holds a record as the third highest-rated episode for any type of television series, and the second most-watched overall series finale in U.S. television history.
It was during the filming of Roots that Amos said he his ancestors spoke to him.
“They gave me a shirt and the costume for the character and I went off to the side while they were shooting another scene. And it was then that whatever it was that happened, where I felt I had become totally taken by the spirit of my ancestors.”
“I knew what it was intuitively; it all of my ancestors who had never been talked about or never been spoken of properly in the history books, and all the millions who have died on the way over in the great slave trade–they were speaking to me.”
“It was not my imagination, I became overwhelmed, and I became agitated. I began screaming and yelling, laying on the floor. They tell me I was speaking in tongues.”
“I was yelling and screaming and a childhood friend Randy was there thought I was having an epileptic seizure. The ancestors said to me, ‘You stay resolute, you stay strong, you will not break, because we did not break. You stay strong Kenta Kunte. We are with you.”
“I knew that it was a life-changing role for me, as an actor and just from a humanistic standpoint,” he told Time magazine. “It was the culmination of all of the misconceptions and stereotypical roles that I had lived and seen being offered to me. It was like a reward for having suffered those indignities.”
Amos is survived by daughter Shannon, a former entertainment executive, and Kelly Christopher, a Grammy-nominated video music director and editor.
