John Amos, the actor known for his role as the family patriarch on the hit sitcom “Good Times” and the adult Kunta Kinte in the famed original miniseries “Roots,” has died, according to a his longtime publicist Belinda Foster. He was 84.
Foster told CNN on the phone on Tuesday that Amos died in Los Angeles of natural causes on August 21. She also shared a statement from Amos’ son, Kelly Christopher Amos, via email.
“It is with heartfelt sadness that I share with you that my father has transitioned,” the statement read. “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.”
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Born and raised in East Orange, New Jersey, Amos found his first passion in sports after he fell in love with football and played at Colorado State University.
While he graduated with a degree in social work, he scored tryouts with the Kansas City Chiefs, the Denver Broncos and the Canadian Football League’s British Columbia Lions.
In a video shared by the Chiefs, Amos once said he was a “slightly better than average high school football player.”
“All I ever wanted to do all my life was to play pro football,” Amos said in the clip. “I figured that was going to be the best way for me to escape the economic strata we seemed to be locked into.”
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Amos would later recall that Kansas City Chiefs coach Hank Stram told him while cutting the future actor from his brief time with the team, “You are not a football player, you are a young man who happens to be playing football.”
Following stints as a social worker and copywriter in New York, Amos turned to acting, scoring the role of weatherman Gordon “Gordy” Howard on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” which would begin his ascent in Hollywood.
Bit parts on other hit 1970s television shows including “Love American Style,” “Sanford and Son” and “The New Dick Van Dyke Show” would follow.
But it was his role as James Evan Sr., the stern father on “Good Times,” which would make Amos a star.
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In a 2020 interview, Amos discussed leaving the hit series after two years following “contention” with the white writers over how the Black family at the center of the show was being portrayed.
“I felt like I knew more about what a Black family should be and how a Black father would act than our writers, none of whom were Black,” Amos said at the time. “Their idea of what a Black family should be and what a Black father would be was totally different from mine, and mine was steeped in reality.”
Amos said the show’s creator, Norman Lear, eventually came around to his way of thinking years later. The pair reportedly reconciled and publicly hugged during the 2019 “Good Times” live TV reunion special.
Race was once again at the forefront when Amos portrayed Toby, the adult version of the slave Kunte Kinte in the critically acclaimed 1977 miniseries “Roots,” which earned Amos an Emmy nomination.
“I knew that it was a life-changing role for me, as an actor and just from a humanistic standpoint,” he told Time magazine in 2021. “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.”
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The “Roots” role reunited him with actress Leslie Uggams, for whom he had written on her short-lived CBS variety series in the late 1960s.
Amos appeared in other beloved roles over the years, including as the fast food restaurant owner Cleo McDowell in the hit 1988 Eddie Murphy comedy “Coming To America” and its 2021 sequel.
Last year, Amos was embroiled in interpersonal family issues after allegations of elder abuse and speculation he was in ill health were made by family members.
“To all of my fans, I want you to know that I am doing well,” Amos said at the time. “I am not in ICU nor was I ever fighting for my life.”
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