John Amos, the beloved TV dad greatest recognized for his roles on Good Occasions and Roots, died in his dwelling in Los Angeles on August 21 of pure causes. His son, Kelly Christopher Amos confirmed the information in an announcement shared with Selection. “He was a person with the kindest coronary heart and a coronary heart of gold… and he was beloved the world over. Many followers think about him their TV father. He lived an excellent life. His legacy will stay on in his excellent works in tv and movie,” he stated. “He was my dad, my greatest buddy, and my hero. Thanks on your prayers and assist right now.” Amos was 84.
Born in Newark, New Jersey in 1939, Amos had a quick soccer profession earlier than touchdown his first main performing position as affable weatherman Gordy Howard on The Mary Tyler Moore Present. He appeared in a few dozen episodes from 1970 till the present’s conclusion in 1977. In that point, he additionally appeared in different sequence like Maude and The New Dick Van Dyke Present, a couple of movies together with Vanishing Level and Candy Sweetback’s Baadasssss Track, and a well known McDonald’s industrial with Anson Williams, which he stated helped him put his youngsters by school, per The Hollywood Reporter.
It was in 1974 that Amos obtained his true large break, when he was requested to audition for the a part of James Evans Sr., the patriarch of a three-child household, for a brand new CBS present. Good Occasions, a Norman Lear-developed spinoff of Maude, which was itself a by-product of All In The Household, was the primary sitcom ever to focus on a Black household. Amos starred within the present for 3 seasons earlier than ideological variations round a few of the present’s extra stereotypical storylines compelled the writers to kill off his character in 1976. In a 2014 interview with the TV Academy Basis, Amos stated he and Lear “had quite a few variations.” Amos thought an excessive amount of emphasis was being positioned on one among his fictional sons, J.J., who wore a “hen hat, saying “Dy-no-mite!” each third web page,” whereas the present may get extra mileage out of the opposite two kids, “one among whom aspired to turn into a Supreme Court docket Justice… and the opposite… who aspired to turn into a surgeon.”
“However I wasn’t essentially the most diplomatic man in these days, they usually obtained bored with having their lives threatened over jokes,” he admitted. “That taught me a lesson — I wasn’t as essential as I assumed I used to be to the present or to Norman Lear’s plans.”
It didn’t hold him down, although. A yr after his Good Occasions character was killed off, Amos was once more approached to star because the older model of Kunta Kinte on the acclaimed miniseries Roots. “It was simply what I wanted,” the actor stated of the position in the identical 2014 interview. “It took the unhealthy style of Good Occasions out of my mouth… Roots was a vindication. There was an incredible feeling of satisfaction.”
Amos continued to have an incredible profession, with almost 100 movie and tv credit mixed. Another notable roles included Fred Wilkes in The Recent Prince Of Bel-Air, Admiral Percy Fitzwallace in The West Wing, Deacon Eller in Ballers, and Buddy Lissons in The Righteous Gem stones. Extra just lately, he and his son produced a documentary about his life referred to as America’s Dad.
In his interview, the Tv Academy Basis requested Amos how he wish to be remembered. His response: “As a man who made individuals snigger, who made individuals suppose slightly bit and who didn’t maintain himself as much as be some thinker—a man who had an exquisite trip by life[.] As somebody individuals loved watching and loved having of their houses.”
