I spent most of my early youth in a mixed-race small town where black and white didn’t, well, mix. Sure, I saw Black kids at school, but I wasn’t allowed to have them in the house, let alone stay over. When I played with kids of color, it was on the playground at Eastside Elementary. On that part-dirt, part-paved strip of land, we were just kids. We didn’t think about what each other looked like, or where we came from. We were just kids. After school, things were much different. You walked home and when the door shut behind you, there was no entry allowed for many of those who you just spent your whole day with.
That’s part of why John Amos was so important to me as a child. For 61 episodes from 1974-76, Amos starred as the patriarch of the inner-city, financially distressed Evans family on Norman Lear’s groundbreaking sitcom, Good Times. Once a week, for a television season, there was a black family seen from inside the home. While Good Times was funny, it was also full of the angst of poverty and prejudice that people of color have suffered from for so long. As much as Jimmie Walker’s catchphrase “Dy-no-mite!” was the hook, the catch was the view of lives lived away from my own. As James Evans Sr., Amos played an imperfect but well-meaning father who was authoritative, but flawed. Built in that country-strong way with a barrel-chested torso and the arms of a professional wrestler, Amos looked like he could carry a couch up several flights of stairs and break bricks with his bare hands. Yet there was so much male fragility there as well. Just watch in the scene below where an out-of-work James discovers that his wife has applied for a job in a kitchen. James is a proud man, and in this moment too proud. Aside from the struggles of racial bias that he struggles with daily, he believes he should provide for the family and his wife Florida (the great Esther Rolle) in that way men of that generation often held onto as proof of their masculinity.
As was commonplace then, a laugh track would play over scenes, even when it didn’t necessarily feel appropriate. As the track prompts you to chuckle, you can easily see through that prompt and feel the real pain beneath. Amos could be tough offscreen too. He often fought with Lear and the show’s writers over what he believed to be the show’s excessive focus on Walker’s one-liners and a lack of realism in the scripts. In response to his opposition, Amos was fired and his character was written out of the show by killing off James Evans Sr. in an off-screen car accident. As much as Good Times may have offered a window into the lives of Black people for those who had no clue, Amos could not abide the show’s compromises.
Amos briefly recovered in 1977 by appearing in the landmark ABC miniseries Roots, which dealt with the slave trade in the United States. For three of the eight episodes, Amos played the adult Kunta-Kinte (picking up for Levar Burton). For his commanding performance as a slave fighting to escape one plantation after another, he was awarded the only Emmy nomination of his career. His scene with Louis Gossett Jr. on the meaning of freedom is beyond powerful and is better off seen than described, which is why I posted it at the end of this piece. Just watch it. You’ll understand.
Despite being a handsome and forceful actor, Amos did not receive the opportunities he fully deserved. There wasn’t enough room on screens silver or small for actors of color and therefore was largely regulated to guest spots on television and several largely forgettable movies. Amos carried on though, even performing in a couple of episodes of the daytime soap opera One Life to Live.
Not until 1988’s Eddie Murphy comedy Coming to America did Amos get the chance to show what he could do in a fulsome way. He was formidable as Cleo McDowell, a restauranteur whose “McDowell’s” stole liberally from McDonald’s in ways more numerous than one can count. “They have the golden arches, we have the golden arcs” Amos wryly stated. He was an excellent foil for Murphy’s character, an African prince named Akeem, who pretended to be a poor man while squiring Mr. McDowell’s daughter. Amos even went toe-to-toe with James Earl Jones (who played the Prince’s father, King Jaffe Joffer) when Joffer questioned McDowell’s daughter’s worthiness. In a cast with a comedic genius as a lead and plenty of high-quality actors around him, Amos stole every scene he was in.
Amos’ performance in Coming to America gave him a brief boost, and he went on to appear in Die Hard 2, Ricochet (with Denzel Washington) and had a quality recurring role on The West Wing. Over his final two decades on screen, Amos’ once again was relegated to mostly small roles and guest spots (his return to the sequel Coming 2 America in 2021 being a notable exception), but what should be remembered for most are the times when he was allowed to show the range of his gifts as an actor. Amos could be fierce, funny, and everything in between. A legion of actors of color who have followed Amos to greater success do so on his incredibly broad shoulders.
That will have to be enough.
John Amos died on August 21, 2024. His death was not announced until October 1st. He was 84 years old.
“Be free,” John Amos. Be free.
