John Amos, the imposing actor who became a monumental figure of endurance in the classic 1977 miniseries "Roots," has died. He was 84.
Amos, who had ties to Newark, East Orange and Tewksbury, died of natural causes on August 21 in Los Angeles, but his death was not announced until Oct. 1.
Amos appeared in movies ranging from "Let's Do It Again" (1975) and "Coming to America" (1988) and "Beastmaster" (1982) to "Die Hard 2" (1990), and was a familiar face on TV: on the "Mary Tyler Moore Show," "The West Wing," and most famously, as patriarch James Evans Sr., husband of Florida (Esther Rolle) in the popular 1970s Norman Lear sitcom "Good Times."
He also did theater: including a play of his own, "Halley's Comet," and August Wilson's "Gem of the Ocean" at Princeton's McCarter Theater and on Broadway.
"If I didn't have a chance to really flex my acting muscles, I'd be bored to tears," Amos told The Record in 1991.
Figure of strength
But it was in "Roots" that Amos really made an impression. As the adult Kunte Kinte — LeVar Burton played him as a young man — Amos was a figure of immense power and dignity, bloody but unbowed in this saga of American slavery that spanned seven generations and — in 1977 — eight consecutive nights. "Roots" was a watershed in American cultural history: the first time that mass media reckoned in a serious way with slavery. In the January after the bicentennial, it was all anyone talked about.
"I have vivid memories of how groundbreaking it was," Walter Fields, past political director of the N.A.A.C.P. for New Jersey, told The Record in 2017. "It was at the top of discussion in high school every day."
Amos took "Roots," and his role as a cultural spokesman for African Americans, seriously. He clashed with the creators of "Good Times" when he felt the show, and its "Dyn-o-mite!" breakout star Jimmie Walker, were trivializing and misrepresenting the Black experience. Eventually he walked off the show.
Amos, born in Newark and raised in East Orange, had a brief football career with the Denver Broncos and the Kansas City Chiefs before he segued into acting on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" in 1970 (he was weatherman Gordy Howard) and then appeared in the cult 1971 film "Vanishing Point."
Married twice, he lived for many years in Tewksbury, Hunterdon County. That's where he was living in 1986, when he went to the Delaware Water Gap looking for an unobstructed view of Halley's Comet. He didn't find it — but he did find the inspiration for a one-man play, "Halley's Comet."
"I saw an old man, and I intentionally eavesdropped while he shared three or four generations of his life with his grandchildren," Amos told The Record in 1991. "He was talking about his first automobile, his first air flight, when he made his first phone call. I felt I was sitting next to a talking history book."
Amos toured in the play for years, playing the 87-year-old John Henry Halley and a gallery of other people in the character's eventful life that spans two appearances of the fabled comet. "It's a challenge," Amos told The Record.
Amos, who served in the New Jersey National Guard, was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2020. He is survived by his daughter Shannon and son Kelly Christopher, "K.C." both in the entertainment industry.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: John Amos, New Jersey-born star of 'Roots' and 'Good Times,' has died, family announces
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