John Amos, the prolific actor known for his work in the sitcoms “Good Times” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” the film “Coming to America” and the miniseries “Roots,” has died. He was 84.

Amos’ publicist, Belinda Foster, confirmed to The Times on Tuesday that the actor died of natural causes on August 21, 2024. No further details were revealed.

For three years and three seasons, Amos was adored by audiences across the country as the tough patriarch of the Evans family on the 1970s sitcom “Good Times.” Amos played James Evans, a hard-working Korean War veteran with a scathing gaze and sharp wit who would do anything to provide for his family.

Like any great TV dad, Amos loved all of his TV children equally – which became a point of contention behind the scenes as the scripts increasingly focused on the comedic antics of the eldest Evans child, JJ (Jimmie ‘JJ’ Walker). . In a 2014 interview with the Television Academy, Amos recalled expressing concerns that the show put “too much emphasis… on JJ and his chicken hat” while neglecting James Evans’ “other two kids.”

According to Amos, his creative differences with the “Good Times” producers — including the legendary Norman Lear — led to him being labeled a “disruptor” and fired from the show. Lear personally called Amos to deliver the news.

‘I didn’t swear or anything. I just hung up the phone,” Amos told the Television Academy.

“And he didn’t call me back to ask if I had anything to say. I never heard from him again for months and months and months.”

Amos bounced back from the termination quickly and triumphantly, earning an Emmy nomination in 1977 for his powerful portrayal of the adult Kunta Kinte in “Roots,” the groundbreaking slavery miniseries based on Alex Haley’s novel of the same name.

Before being cast as the show’s main character (along with LeVar Burton, who played the young Kunta Kinte), Amos auditioned for two other parts. When he was finally invited to read for the “once-in-a-lifetime role” of Kinte, Amos “almost fainted.”

“I couldn’t believe it,” he told the TV Academy in 2014. “It was like hitting the lottery.”

Amos was acutely aware of the impact his performance and “Roots” had on viewers, who let him know in real time how deeply they were moved by Kinte’s revolutionary story.

“I was on the freeway and this big brother pulls up next to me in this piece of old Detroit steel,” Amos recalled in an interview with The Times, 40 years after “Roots” premiered.

“He said, ‘Man, stop!’ So I pulled the car over. He said, ‘Hey, man, i watched ‘Roots’ on TV last night, man. Man, it really hit me…I was halfway through and I went to get my .38 and I went to record the TV!” That was the funniest thing that happened. I hope he wasn’t looking for me to pay him back.”

Amos was born on December 27, 1939 in Newark, NJ. He attended East Orange High School, where he played football while also being a singer Dionne Warwick cheerleader, according to the New York Times.

For a while, Amos stayed on the track. He was a running back at Colorado State before trying unsuccessfully for the Denver Broncos and being cut by the Kansas City Chiefs after tearing his Achilles tendon – a season-ending injury. Amos credited former Chiefs coach Hank Stram with helping him realize his true passion.

“Young man, you’re not a football player,” Stram told him. “You’re a young man who happens to play football.”

While mourning the impending loss of his football career, Amos wrote a poem that Stram had him read to his teammates. The team gave him a standing ovation.

“When (Stram) saw the team’s reaction to the poem, he said, ‘I think you have another calling,’” Amos recalled in 2012.

When he left the NFL, Amos turned to copywriting before moonlighting as a comedy writer for the small screen. He launched his entertainment career as a staff writer for the 1969 CBS musical variety series “The Leslie Uggams Show.”

In 1970, Amos booked his first major acting role as Gordy the weatherman on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” after some writers working simultaneously on “Uggams” and “Mary Tyler Moore” decided he would be perfect for the role.

“Honestly, I never looked back after that,” Amos told the Los Angeles Times in 2012.

Amos went on to appear in dozens of groundbreaking TV series, including “Good Times,” “Roots,” “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” “Sanford and Son,” “Hunter” and “The West Wing,” in which he played the military commander-in-chief Percy “Fitz” Fitzwallace.

Amid the high-stakes political drama of the groundbreaking show about a fictional president and his staff, Admiral Fitzwallace was often the voice of reason who could command a room as effectively as Amos could command the screen.

“For that role of Admiral Percy Fitzwallace, I would have paid them,” Amos told the TV Academy.

“The uniform itself was one thing, all that salad dressing – fruit salad, we would call it – are medals. Once I put on that jacket, I became the commander-in-chief.”

A onetime TV writer himself, Amos never missed an opportunity to give props to the creators — even Lear, who eventually reunited with the deposed “Good Times” star for “704 Hauser.” In the short-lived series, Amos played the liberal father of a young conservative activist who lived in Archie Bunker’s old house in Queens.

“I’ve matured to the point where if I had creative differences, I’d say, ‘Norman, can I talk to you?’ instead of threatening bodily harm,” Amos joked in a 2012 interview with The Times.

The actor was married twice: first to Noel J. Mickelson, the mother of his two children, from 1965 to 1975, and then briefly to actor Lillian Lehman in the late 1970s. Mickelson died in 2016.

More recently, Amos denied his daughter Shannon’s 2023 posts in which she accused her brother Kelly “KC” Amos of neglect and failing to provide proper care to their father. The elder Amos was hospitalized in 2023 but recovered after treatment for fluid retention in his lower body.

“I will say this for now: this story of neglect is false and undeserved,” Amos said in a statement in March after the LAPD opened an investigation into the allegations. “The real truth will come out soon and you will hear it from me. Believe it.”

In addition to his extensive work on the small screen, Amos appeared in a number of films, such as ‘Coming to America’. He portrayed Cleo McDowell, restaurateur and father of Eddie Murphy’s love interest, in the 1988 classic comedy.

Even after his acting career took off, Amos didn’t stop writing. For decades he toured the United States with a one-man show he had written about an 87-year-old man waiting for the return of Halley’s Comet.

Amos told the Television Academy in 2014 that he wanted to be remembered as “a man who made people laugh” and “made people think.”

“I would like to be remembered as someone they enjoyed watching and enjoyed having in their home,” he said.

“That’s a good feeling, to know that a stranger sitting in a remote town somewhere laughed so much that he forgot his lingering misery or trouble and said to his family, ‘Hey, John Amos’s turn. Come in here! Let’s laugh.’ I mean, is there anything better than that?”

Amos had continued to work well into the years leading up to his death, starring in several films, including ‘The Last Rifleman’ in 2023 and HBO’s ‘The Righteous Gemstones’ in 2022. Months before his death, Amos was set to guest star on NBC’s ‘Suits ‘. : LA,” a spin-off series from USA Network’s “Suits.”

Former staff writer Susan King contributed to this report.