© Jim O’Connor-Imagn Images
(Los Angeles, CA) – John Amos, a running back turned actor who appeared in scores of TV shows — including groundbreaking 1970s programs such as the sitcom “Good Times” and the epic miniseries “Roots” — and risked his career to protest demeaning portrayals of Black characters, died Aug. 21 in Los Angeles. He was 84. His family stated that he died of natural causes, though it’s unclear why the family waited weeks after his death to make it public.
After being cut by 13 professional and minor-league football teams in his 20s, often because of injuries, his breakthrough came in 1969, when he became one of the first African Americans to write on staff for a network program (CBS’s “The Leslie Uggams Show”). Having impressed executives with his comic timing, he soon began performing on camera.
John Allen Amos Jr. was born in Newark on Dec. 27, 1939, and grew up in nearby East Orange, New Jersey.