Black America’s first TV dad: John Amos

I was always afraid of this man growing up while watching him on Good Times. I think the fact that he did not take any mess from his kids and his size is what really scared me. You know what? That was a good thing.

As a dad myself, I am very sadden to see the image of fathers on TV become so watered down. You can even see this trend in popular cartoons like Jimmy Neutron, Fairly Oddparents, Proud Family, etc. TV dads today seem to be so weak, while the big joke of the show is that the wife really wears the pants and shirt in the family.

I personally could relate to John Amos’ character (James Evans) because like him, my dad also worked a blue collar job with crappy hours as well. Mr. Evans was a very hard worker who did all that he could do to provide for his family. He watched over his kids like a hawk, protecting them from people who wanted to take advantage of them. He loved and respected his woman (Florida) very much.

Amos has also made appearance in other productions like Roots, Mary Tyler Moore Show, and on screen movies like Die Hard 2.

Amos will always go down as one of my favorite actors who showed the world how to be a man.

Here is more about this great actor:

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John Amos is a burly balding black actor with a gently gruff screen presence. He played Esther Rolle’s husband on Good Times, WJM’s weatherman on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, the adult Kunta Kinte on Roots, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on The West Wing. He was also the Mayor on Craig T. Nelson’s The District, and owned the fast-food restaurant where Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall briefly worked in Coming to America.

He wrote for Leslie Uggams’ short-lived 1969 CBS variety show, and later wrote the play Halley’s Comet, about an old man whose memories are intertwined with the comet he saw as a boy. Before Amos was famous, he was featured prominently in McDonald’s singing-and-dancing “You deserve a break today” commercials as a smiling shift manager.

Good Times was a groundbreaking show, milking laughs from actual issues of minority life in a rough neighborhood. But Amos, who played the family’s no-nonsense father, complained as the show gradually shifted its focus onto the silly antics (and perceived negative racial stereotypes) of Jimmie Walker’s “J.J.” character.

“It was an ongoing struggle to say no, I don’t want to be a part of the perpetuation of this stereotype,” Amos recalls. “Despite the fact that I had a writing background, they didn’t want to accept whatever ideas I had as a writer. So when I would pose arguments about J.J.’s role being too stereotypical, I was regarded as a negative factor.

“It ultimately reached a point where it was inflammable, I mean, spontaneous combustion could happen at any minute. They killed my character off and as God would have it, just when they told me I would never work again, I got cast in a little program called Roots, and as they would say, the rest is history. I could have begged and they made it obvious to me that if I wanted to come back and be a good boy… but I’d rather say ‘Toby be good nigger’ in Roots than say ‘Toby be good nigger’ on Good Times.”

Father: John Amos, Sr..

Wife: Noel J. Mickelson (one son, one daughter)

Son: Kelly Christopher “K. C.” Amos (director, The Watermelon Heist, with Mickelson)

Daughter: Shannon Amos (producer, The Watermelon Heist, with Mickelson)

Wife: Lillian Lehman (actress, Tenafly, div., two children)

Wife: Elisabete De Sousa-Amos (PR Director, Halley’s Comet Foundation)

(more…)

..and here.