This interview with John Amos was originally published in 2015. We’re republishing it now with an expanded intro following the actor’s death at 84. John Amos was one of those actors fortunate enough to have more than one iconic role on his résumé.
His two biggest parts were as patriarch James Evans Sr. on Good Times and the elder Kunta Kinte on epic miniseries Roots . But even his smaller roles endured — Cleo McDowell in the two Coming to America movies, Admiral Fitzwallace on The West Wing , or the one that first brought him fame: Gordy the weatherman on CBS’s The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Amos appeared roughly a dozen times over the course of that show’s first three seasons, and even though he left in 1974 for the regular gig on Good Times , his character was vital enough that he returned with his own spotlight episode during Mary Tyler Moore ’s final season. Amos, a New Jersey native, died of natural causes on August 21 in Los Angeles at the age of 84, though his passing wasn’t officially announced by his publicist until today. While family drama related to his children and their squabbling resulted in a slew of unfortunate headlines last year, that messiness took nothing away from Amos’s status as an icon of 1970s television and one of the most beloved small-screen dads in the history of the medium.
It was not a conventional path to stardom: He was nearly 30 years old when he got his first big Hollywood job in 1969, landing a gig as a writer on a variety .