John Amos, who played the stoic father on Good Times and played the elderly Kunta Kinte in Alex Haley’s groundbreaking miniseries Roots, has died at the age of 84.

His son, Kelly Christopher Amos, announced that Amos died of natural causes in Los Angeles on August 21.

“It is with sincere sadness that I share with you the passing of my father,” he said in a statement. “He was a man with the kindest heart and a heart of gold… and he was loved all over the world. Many fans consider him their TV dad. He lived a good life. His legacy will live on through his outstanding works on television and film as an actor.”

Amos initially pursued a career in football after playing at Colorado State University, where he tried out for the Denver Broncos and the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League. His entertainment career gained momentum when he was cast as WJN-TV weatherman Gordy Howard on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

After four seasons as a genial presence on the early 1970s comedy, Amos was asked to audition for the role of James Evans Sr, husband to Esther Rolle’s Florida Evans and father of three, for the CBS series Good Times. The show, which ran from 1974 to 1979, was developed by Eric Monte and Mike Evans along with All in the Family creator Norman Lear. Good Times, a spin-off of Maude, itself a descendant of the groundbreaking All in the Family, was the first sitcom to center on a black American family.

Amos starred for three seasons in the series, which is set in downtown Chicago. But he became irritated by stereotypical storylines for Evans’ eldest son, JJ, played by comedian Jimmie Walker. Amos was written off the show when he made his criticism public.

“We had some disagreements,” Amos said of Lear in a 2014 interview for the TV Academy Foundation. “I felt like there was too much emphasis on JJ with his chicken hat saying, ‘Dy-no-mite!’ every third page. I felt that just as much emphasis and mileage could have been gotten out of my other two children, one of whom aspired to be a Supreme Court justice, played by Ralph Carter, and the other, Bern Nadette Stanis, who aspired to be a surgeon become.

“But I wasn’t the most diplomatic guy at the time, and (the show’s producers) were tired of their lives being threatened over jokes. So they said, ‘You know, why don’t we kill him? We can get on with our lives!’ That taught me a lesson: I wasn’t as important as I thought I was to the show or to Norman Lear’s plans.

Amos’ character was killed in a car accident in a two-part episode that began the show’s fourth season in September 1976.

In the same 2014 interview, Amos became emotional as he recalled how “young men in their thirties and forties, of every ethnicity imaginable, came up to me and said, ‘You are the father I never had.'”

After his stint on Good Times, Lear’s company hired him to play a congressman in the pilot for a show called Onward and Upward, which he also eventually quit. Soon after, he was approached to appear in Roots, the critically acclaimed 1977 ABC miniseries.

“It was exactly what I needed,” he said. “It took the bad taste of Good Times out of my mouth – not that Good Times had all been bad, but the circumstances under which I left and the bitterness between Norman Lear and myself… I realize that I have a lot of it to myself. I wasn’t the easiest guy in the world to be around or to direct. I challenged everyone.”

Roots was “a vindication, a huge sense of satisfaction.”

Amos’ additional TV credits include recurring roles on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, in which he plays Will Smith’s stepfather, as well as Hunter, The District, Men in Trees, All About the Andersons and the Netflix drama The Ranch. He appeared in films such as The World’s Greatest Athlete, Die Hard 2 and Coming to America 2.