Good Times, Roots Actor John Amos Dead At 84

Respected film and television actor John Amos sadly died on August 21, 2024 (via Hollywood Reporter). He was 84 years old. "It is with heartfelt sadness that I share with you that my father has transitioned," his son Kelly Christopher Amos 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."

John Amos was a respected, film industry veteran who not only paved the way for Black Americans on television in roles such as devoted, hard-working family father on "Good Times" (1974-76), but many other recognizable and notable roles, particularly "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" (1970-1977), "Roots" (1977), "Hunter" (1984-1985), and "The West Wing" (1999-2004). The award-nominated Amos, who won 1996's NAACP Image Award, was often called upon to play positions of authority that reflected his physical hardiness and forceful on-screen presence.

Amos was devoted to realistic, honest portrayals of Black Americans in the arts. Regarding his role as the adult Kunta Kinte in "Roots," he told the Orlando Sentinel, "It gave me the opportunity to refute stereotypes about Africa, about male characters. When I was raised in the New Jersey school system in the '50 and '60s, there was not a great deal of information about Africa. Usually it was misinformation."

Amos echoed this sentiment when speaking about his role on "Good Times," particularly his conflict with the show's writers that led to him getting fired. "We had no African American writers on the show, and some of the attitudes they had written, as per my character and, frankly, for some of the other characters as well, caused me to say, 'Uh uh, we can't do this, we can't do that.' And they'd say, 'What do you mean we can't do this?'" he said, per Ebony.

Born John A. Amos Jr. in 1939 in Newark, New Jersey, Amos grew up the son of an auto mechanic, per Film Reference, and was heavily involved in sports. As Turner Classic Movies wrote, Amos was not only a Golden Gloves boxing winner, but a semiprofessional football player in the United States and Canada. Amos graduated from Colorado State University with a sociology degree and worked in New York as a social worker before switching fields to advertising, then trying his hand at stand-up comedy. This might seem surprising because Amos was typically cast in ultra serious, imposing roles, but as he said on the Orlando Sentinel, "If you can do comedy, drama is a cakewalk. If you have the gift to make people laugh, use it. That's what the world needs: laughter."   

Amos' acting career started as a writer for the "Leslie Uggams Show" in 1969, the first TV show in history to be headed by a Black woman. This led to Amos appearing in a bunch of smaller roles in the early 1970s, as IMDb depicts, which led to his career-defining turn as family patriarch James Evans Sr. on "Good Times." Regarding his role on "Roots," Amos discussed on the Television Academy Foundation how he was originally reading for the part of a wrestler who leads a slave revolt. During casting, however, he leveraged an accent learned from intermittently living in Liberia to land his role as the older Kunta Kinte.

John Amos stayed fairly busy in his career through his late life, among other things reprising his role in 1988's "Coming to America" in 2021's "Coming 2 America." Throughout his life, he never stopped fielding questions about why he left "Good Times." Per Essence, he stated in his true, straightforward manner, "I left because I was told that my services were no longer needed because I had become a 'disruptive element.' Being born in Newark, raised in East Orange, I had a way of voicing my differences against the script that weren't acceptable to the creative staff. I mean, the writers got tired of having their lives threatened over jokes." On the Orlando Sentinel, he also described one of his career highlights as meeting former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who said of his character Percy Fitzwallace on "The West Wing," "What kind of name is that for a brother?"

In his personal life, Amos was married twice and had two children with his first wife, Noel J. Mickelson. They met and fell in love in the midst of the civil rights movement, at a time when interracial marriage was still illegal in 16 states. Only in 1967, when the Supreme Court overturned its legislation regarding interracial marriage did their marriage become recognized across the entire country, as Amo Mama reported. 

Besides his children Shannon and K.C., Amos is survived by his granddaughter Quiera.