John Amos, a Star of ‘Good Times’ and ‘Roots,’ Is Dead at 84

John Amos, who played a stern patriarch on “Good Times,” America’s first sitcom featuring a two-parent Black family, and who had a starring role in “Roots,” the slavery narrative that became America’s most watched show in the late 1970s, has died in Los Angeles. He was 84.

His publicist, Belinda Foster, confirmed the death on Tuesday, saying he had died on Aug. 21. She did not specify the cause or say why the announcement of his death was delayed.

Mr. Amos’s acting career spanned more than five decades, with his breakthrough coming in 1970 on the CBS comedy “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” playing Gordy, the weatherman on a local television news program working alongside Ms. Moore’s Mary Richards, an associate producer. After three seasons, Mr. Amos left for “Good Times,” a Norman Lear production and a spinoff of the producer’s sitcom “Maude.”

Chronicling the trials and tribulations of a Black working-class family living in the Chicago projects, “Good Times,” which ran from 1974-79, also on CBS, never shied away from the gritty realities of life in public housing, touching on topics like racial bigotry, drug abuse and poverty — but all with a sense of humor.

Mr. Amos played James Evans Sr., a fierce disciplinarian with a tender heart who took on odd jobs to support his wife, Florida Evans (Esther Rolle), his sons Michael (Ralph Carter) and J.J. (Jimmie Walker), and his daughter, Thelma (Bern Nadette Stanis).