AD
play_arrow

keyboard_arrow_right

Listeners:

Top listeners:

skip_previous skip_next
00:00 00:00
playlist_play chevron_left
volume_up
  • cover play_arrow

    94.3 Rev-FM The Rock of Texas | Where Texas Rocks

  • cover play_arrow

    99.1 The Buck Texas Country's Number 1 Country

  • cover play_arrow

    103.7 MikeFM Your Texas Hill Country Mix Tape

  • cover play_arrow

    KERV 1230 AM

  • cover play_arrow

    JAM Sports 1 JAM Broadcasting Sports 1

  • cover play_arrow

    JAM Sports 2 JAM Broadcasting Sports 2

Entertainment News

John Amos, Emmy-nominated ‘Good Times’ and ‘Roots’ actor, dies at 84

todayOctober 1, 2024

Background
share close
AD

John Amos, the actor best known for playing doting father James Evans Sr. on the sitcom Good Times, has died, his publicist told ABC News. He was 84.

Amos was also known for his role as the older Kunta Kinte on the 1977 TV miniseries Roots, for which he received an Emmy nomination.

Born in Newark, New Jersey, on Dec. 27, 1939, Amos first tried to make it as a professional football player before he turned to acting. He is also a veteran of the 50th Armored Division of the New Jersey National Guard and an honorary master chief of the United States Coast Guard.

Amos is best known for his role on the Norman Lear-created series Good Times opposite Esther Rolle‘s Florida Evans. The sitcom, following a Black family in Chicago and tackling subjects like poverty, drug use and inner-city crime, ran for six seasons between 1974 and 1979 — though Amos was only on the show for the first half of its run.

Elsewhere on television, Amos starred as Gordy the weatherman on The Mary Tyler Moore Show; as the adult Kunta Kinte on the landmark miniseries Roots in 1977 — which earned him an Emmy nomination; and as the recurring character Admiral Percy Fitzwallace on The West Wing.

Other roles on the small screen included Maude, Hunter, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, In the House, The District, All About the Andersons, Men in Trees, Two and a Half Men and The Ranch, to name a few.

The actor appeared in numerous films, as well, including Let’s Do It Again (1975), The Beastmaster (1982), Coming to America (1988), Die Hard 2 (1990), Madea’s Witness Protection (2012) and Coming 2 America (2021). He even played himself in a small cameo in 2019’s Uncut Gems.

Amos, a member of the New Jersey Hall of Fame, was married twice. He is survived by his daughter, Shannon, and son K.C., both of whom he shared with his first wife, Noel Mickelson.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

AD

Written by: ABC News

Rate it

AD
0%