“Good Times” star John Amos has died at the age of 84

John Amos, who played the father in “Good Times,” has died. He was 84 years old.

Amos’ publicist Belinda Foster confirmed the news of his death to The Associated Press on Tuesday. Further details were initially not known.

One of Amos’ first prominent roles was as the WJM-TV weatherman on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” He also appeared frequently on “The Tim Conway Comedy Hour,” which ran in 1970, before landing “Good Times” in 1974.

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John Amos, who played the father in “Good Times,” has died. He was 84 years old. (Getty Images)

Amos received an Emmy nomination for his role in the miniseries “Roots” (1977).

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Amos’ son KC said in a statement to the Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday: “It is with deep sadness that I inform you that my father has made the transition. He was a man with the kindest heart and a heart of gold… and he was loved.” Many fans consider him their TV dad. His legacy will live on in his outstanding work as an actor.

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Amos played James Evans Sr. in the Norman Lear-produced sitcom Good Times, which ran from 1974 to 1979.

“This show was the most realistic depiction of the life of an African-American family that could live under these circumstances,” Amos told Time magazine in 2021 about the groundbreaking sitcom, which was the first to portray a two-parent Black family on TV.

John Amos in the 1977 miniseries Roots. (ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)

But Amos told Time that he was sometimes frustrated by the series’ storylines, which were developed by white writers.

“We did everything we could to do what we thought was right. And our beliefs were based on experience. Me, the experience of working and living as an African American back then. And some of his writers who theorized what my reactions or “The character’s reactions are largely based on the Beverly Hills point of view,” he said.

He also admitted that he had anger management issues, which he said stemmed from his time as a football player. Amos briefly had a contract with the Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs before his acting career took off, but an injury ended his football dreams.

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“Early on in my acting career, I discovered that I couldn’t resort to the same kind of pressure valve: to yank away a writer who had given me bad material and hit him in the forearm with a punch,” he told Time.

He was fired from Good Times after three seasons.

“There were several examples where I said, ‘No, you don’t do that. This is an abomination to the black community. If you don’t mind, I’m the expert on this,'” he said at the time. “And it became so confrontational and heated that ultimately the best solution for everyone involved, including me, was to be eliminated from the show.”

After leaving Good Times, Amos played the adult version of the main character in Roots.

John Amos at a premiere in 2016. (Shareif Ziyadat/WireImage)

“I knew it was a life-changing role for me, as an actor and just from a humanistic perspective,” he told Time. “It was the culmination of all the misunderstandings and stereotypical roles I had experienced and seen being offered to me. It was like a reward for suffering these humiliations.”

After “Roots,” Amos continued to work on television in shows such as “The Love Boat,” “The A-Team,” “Murder, She Wrote,” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.”

He also appeared in Coming to America (1988) and Die Hard 2 (1990).

In “The West Wing,” he played Admiral Percy Fitzwallace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for 22 episodes.

Amos continued acting until shortly before his death, most recently playing himself in the upcoming “Suits” spinoff “Suits: LA.”

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He appeared in Pierce Brosnon’s The Last Rifleman in 2023 and Adam Sandler’s Uncut Gems in 2019. In 2021 he reprized his role in the sequel to “Coming to America”.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.