‘Good Times’ Star John Amos Dead at 84

Hollywood is mourning the loss of John Amos. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Good Times star passed away on Aug. 21 in Los Angeles of natural causes. His son, K.C. Amos, announced in a statement, “It is with heartfelt sadness that I share with you that my father has transitioned. 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.”

Born on Dec. 27, 1939 in Newark, New Jersey, John Alan Amos Jr. played football at Colorado State University and even had training camp tryouts with the Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs. While football ended up not going his way and he was cut from the Chiefs twice, he wound up in Vancouver where he did stand-up. There, he met a television writer who urged him to move to Los Angeles. He later got a gig writing and performing on a syndicated TV variety show hosted by Al Lohman and Roger Barkley.

The job led to him writing and performing sketches on CBS’ The Leslie Uggams Show in 1969. Lorenzo Music and Dave Davis, two producers on the show, were working on a new series for Mary Tyler Moore and figured Amos would be great for it. He recurred as Gordy Howard throughout the first four seasons of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and soon after landed the role of James Evan Sr. on the CBS sitcom Good Times, which ran for six seasons from 1974 to 1979.

He received an Emmy nomination for playing Toby, the older version of Kunta Kinte, on the 1977 ABC miniseries . In 2020, he was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame. He appeared on Broadway in 1972 in Carl Reiner’s Tough to Get Help and wrote and starred in the one-man play Halley’s Comet in the 1990s and toured over the country and overseas for over two decades.

After Good Times, John Amos would go on to appear in projects such as Future Cop, The Love Boat, The A-Team, One Life to Live, Murder, She Wrote, The Cosby Show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Walker, Texas Ranger, The West Wing, and 30 Rock, among many others. His final role was as Lincoln Jefferson Adams in the 2023 film The Last Rifleman. According to Amos’ IMDb page, he had three projects in the works, including the upcoming NBC Suits spinoff,  Additionally, Amos and his son produced the documentary America’s Dad.