John Amos, ‘Success’ Papa, Passes Away at 84 

John Amos, the television author turned Emmy-nominated star who starred as the stoic dad on Success before he was fired from the landmark comedy for undoubtedly letting his mood get the very best of him, has actually passed away. He was 84.

Amos passed away Aug. 21 in Los Angeles of natural causes, his child Kelly Christopher Amos revealed.

” It is with sincere unhappiness that I show you that my dad has actually transitioned,” he stated in a declaration. “He was a male with the kindest heart and a heart of gold … and he was enjoyed the world over. Numerous fans consider him their television dad. He lived an excellent life. His tradition will survive on in his exceptional operate in tv and movie as a star.”.

Amos, who played football at Colorado State University and had training school tryouts with the Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs of the Football League, saw his showbiz profession chase he landed a gig to play WJN-TV weatherman Gordy Howard on The Mary Tyler Moore Program

The New Jersey native got his Emmy nom for depicting Toby, the older variation of Kunta Kinte, on the well-known 1977 ABC miniseries Roots, and he had a repeating function as Admiral Percy Fitzwallace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Personnel, on NBC’s West Wing

His profession on the cinema started with Melvin Van Peebles’ blaxploitation classic Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Tune ( 1971 ), and he played the supervisor of a McDonald’s- like dining establishment who employs an African prince (Eddie Murphy) and his right-hand guy (Arsenio Hall) in Pertaining To America (1988 ).

Several years previously, Amos had actually remained in the McDonald’s training program before looking like a worker for the fast-food chain in a widely known 1971 commercial (” Get a pail and mop, scrub the bottom and leading!”) that he stated assisted put his kids through college.

After appearing a lots times as the good-natured Gordy on the very first 4 seasons of The Mary Tyler Moore Program, the barrel-chested Amos was welcomed to check out for the part of James Evans Sr., the partner of Esther Rolle’s Florida Evans and dad of their 3 kids, on a brand-new CBS series, Success

The 1974-79 program, developed by Eric Monte and Mike Evans and established by Norman Lear, was embeded in an urban Chicago home situated in the tasks (believe Cabrini-Green). A spinoff of Maude (itself a descendant of All in the Household), Success was the very first comedy to center on an African-American household.

” Everyone understood who Norman Lear was,” Amos said in a 2014 interview for the television Academy Structure. “I ‘d seen the pilot episode of All in the Household and believed, ‘There’s no other way on the planet they’re going to put that on tv.’ … Sure enough, it ended up being a hit.

” So I entered and check out with Miss Rolle for Norman Lear, with simply the 3 people in his workplace. When we ended up the reading, Norman took a look at Esther, and Esther took a look at me and took a look at Norman and stated, ‘He’ll do simply great.’ “

Amos starred on the program for 3 seasons, however he quickly challenged the ridiculous, stereotyped stories that surrounded their earliest child on the series, J.J.– played by the comic Jimmie Walker– and he went public with his criticism.

” We had a variety of distinctions,” he stated. “I felt excessive focus was being placed on J.J. in his chicken hat, stating ‘Dy-no-mite!’ every 3rd page. I felt simply as much focus and mileage might have been left my other 2 kids, among whom desired end up being a Supreme Court justice, played by Ralph Carter, and the other, BernNadette Stanis, who desired end up being a cosmetic surgeon.

” However I wasn’t the most diplomatic guy in those days, and [the show’s producers] got tired of having their lives threatened over jokes. So they stated, ‘Inform you what, why do not we eliminate him off? We can proceed with our lives!’ That taught me a lesson– I wasn’t as essential as I believed I was to the program or to Norman Lear’s strategies.”

James Evans Sr. was the victim of an automobile mishap in a two-part episode that aired in September 1976 to start season 4.

John Alan Amos Jr. was born upon Dec. 27, 1939, in Newark, New Jersey. His dad drove a tractor-trailer and worked as a mechanic, and his mom, Annabelle, was a maid who ultimately returned to school and ended up being a nutritional expert.

His mother cleaned up the home of a cartoonist who drew for the Archie comics, which caused Amos and a pal participating in a taping of radio’s The Archie Program at Radio City Music Hall in New York City City. “It blew my creativity broad open,” he stated.

” I was dissatisfied in such a way, due to the fact that none appeared like Archie or Jughead or Veronica … A few of the magic vanished, however the science of the market emerged to me.”

At East Orange High School, Amos drew animations and composed columns for the school paper, played a found guilty in a production of The Male Who Pertained To Supper and was a star running back.

Amos won football scholarships to Long Beach City College in California and after that Colorado State University, where the Rams had the longest losing streak in the country at the time.

” God kept informing me, ‘I do not desire you playing football,'” he stated. “The instructions I was receiving from above was to be an entertainer, to be an author, something that I had actually constantly done and came simple for me.”.

Still, Amos did not quit his imagine playing professional football, signing his very first free-agent agreement with the Broncos. (Among his training school colleagues was Ernie Barnes, whose painting, Sugar Shack, appeared in the opening credits of Success)

Amos played or checked out to have fun with numerous groups, consisting of the Norfolk Neptunes of the Continental Football League and the British Columbia Lions of the Canadian Football League.

After the Chiefs cut him for a 2nd time, Coach Hank Stram permitted him to check out a poem about shattered dreams to the gamers– and he got a standing ovation. “It was the very first verification I obtained from my peers that I might compose product that might stimulate feelings in individuals,” he stated. “It was really rewarding, far more so than running off-tackle or attempting to get a blitz.”

( Amos would play a retired gamer having problem with injuries from his NFL days on the HBO series Ballers)

In Vancouver, Amos did stand-up and fulfilled a tv author who motivated him to come to Los Angeles, where he landed a writing and carrying out task on a syndicated television range reveal hosted by radio characters Al Lohman and Roger Barkley. (Likewise getting their starts on that program: McLean Stevenson, Craig T. Nelson and Barry Levinson.)

That in turn caused work composing and carrying out in sketches on the 1969 CBS range program The Leslie Uggams Program. 2 manufacturers there, Lorenzo Music and Dave Davis, were assisting to establish a series for Mary Tyler Moore and believed he ‘d be terrific for that.

” They might really quickly have actually stated, ‘Well, [Gordy] can be a sports commentator.’ That would have been [as easy as] falling off a log for me,” he remembered. “I liked the reality that he was a meteorologist; that suggested the guy might believe.”

On the 1973-74 season of Maude, Amos appeared on 3 episodes as Florida’s partner, establishing the launch of Success

James Evans had a hard time to discover full-time work, however “he offered his household with any task that he might discover. We handled to make it through, and America enjoyed that program. It was close to how most Americans lived at that time.”

In his 2014 television Academy Structure interview, Amos got psychological when he kept in mind that he had “boys, in their 30s and 40, of every ethnic culture possible, come near me and state, ‘You’re the father I never ever had.'”

After he left Success, Lear’s business employed him to play a congressman on the pilot for a brand-new program called Onward and Up However he would stop that task too.

Amos had actually taken a trip a number of times to Africa, consisting of living for months at a time in Liberia “to take in the culture of the continent that I had actually originated from, indirectly,” when he was approached to appear in Roots

” It was simply what I required,” he stated. “It took the bad taste of Success out of my mouth– not that Success had actually been all bad, however the scenarios under which I left and the acrimony in between Norman Lear and myself … I recognize that a great deal of it I induced myself. I was not the simplest guy on the planet to agree, or to direct. I challenged any and everyone. [Roots] was a vindication, an incredible sensation of fulfillment.”.

He and Lear ultimately overcame it, and Amos starred for the manufacturer in a brief 1994 comedy, 704 Hauser, about a liberal household living in Archie Bunker’s previous home in Queens.

Amos likewise had repeating functions on other television programs like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, on which he played Will Smith’s stepfather; Hunter; The District; Male in Trees; Everything About the Andersons, as Anthony Anderson’s father; and the Netflix drama The Cattle Ranch

His movie résumé likewise consisted of The World’s Greatest Professional athlete (1973 ), Let’s Do It Once again (1975 ), The Beastmaster (1982 ), Pass Away Tough 2 (1990 ), Ricochet (1991 ), Mac (1992 ), Night Trap ( 1993 ), For Much Better or Worse (1995 ), The Players Club (1998 ), Pertaining To America 2 (2021) and Since of Charley (2021 ).

In 1972, he appeared on Broadway in Difficult to Get Assistance, directed by Carl Reiner.

When he discovered it hard to get operate in the 1990s, Amos composed and starred in the one-man play Halley’s Comet, about an 87-year-old guy who ponders about the state of the world while he waits in the woods for the coming of “the comet.” He explored all over the U.S. and in a number of abroad cities with the play for more than twenty years.

In addition to his child, K.C. (nicknamed for Amos’ days with the Chiefs), survivors include his child, Shannon, both from his very first marital relationship to Noel “Noni” Mickelson. THR‘s Gary Baum composed his kids’ acrimonious relationship in November.

Amos likewise was quickly wed to starlet Lillian Lehman, who played Andre Braugher’s mom on Male of a Particular Age

Duane Byrge added to this report