He played in popular TV series, but also action films such as “Die Hard 2”. The death of the popular US actor has now been reported.
John Amos, the television writer and Emmy-nominated actor who, among other things, played the role of the stoic father in the sitcom “Good Times”, is dead. He was 84 years old. Amos died of natural causes in Los Angeles on August 21, as his son KC Amos announced in a moving statement.
“It is with deep sadness that I inform you that my father has passed away,” wrote KC Amos. “He was a man full of kindness and with a heart of gold…he was loved around the world. Many fans consider him their TV father. He lived a good life. His legacy is reflected in his outstanding work on television and Live on in film as an actor.”
Amos initially aimed for a career as a football player. He played football successfully at Colorado State University in the 1960s and even made it to training camps with the Denver Broncos and the Kansas City Chiefs in the American Football League, the top division of American football at the time.
In a video the Kansas City Chiefs shared on social media a few years ago, Amos said he was a “slightly better than the average high school football player.” “All I wanted to do my whole life was play professional football,” the actor said. “I thought this would be the best way for me to escape the economic situation we seemed to be trapped in.”
John Amos was born on December 27, 1939 in Newark, New Jersey, into humble circumstances. His father drove a semi-truck and worked as a mechanic, his mother, Annabelle, was a housekeeper who eventually went back to school and trained to be a nutritionist. His mother cleaned the house of a cartoonist who drew comics, which Amos soon came into contact with. “It captured my imagination,” he once said.
He then began his show business career in the early 1970s with guest appearances on The Bill Cosby Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The first supporting roles in feature films followed.
He played in series that were extremely popular in Germany, such as “The A-Team”, “Two and a Half Men” and “Murder is their hobby”. Since the 1980s, Amos has also appeared in mainstream cinema, including in “Beastmaster”, “The Prince of Zamunda” and the action blockbuster “Die Hard 2”. The actor received an Emmy nomination for his performance in the acclaimed 1977 ABC miniseries “Roots,” and Amos also had a recurring role as Admiral Percy Fitzwallace on the NBC series “West Wing.”
