When John Amos Had Enough of the ‘Good Times’

It was the role John Amos had worked toward his entire acting career. For three seasons, to many accolades and impressive ratings, Amos played the patriarch, James Evans Sr., on “Good Times.” The character was hardworking, earnest and serious-minded — traits largely unseen in Black television characters up to that point in the mid-1970s. And “Good Times” was a hit, part of a string of sitcom successes from the executive producer Norman Lear.

But suddenly, Amos was no longer a part of the cast. The groundbreaking show explained the absence to viewers by having Evans die in an offscreen car accident while preparing the family for a move to Mississippi.

“Damn! Damn! Damn!” the actress Esther Rolle, who played Evans’s wife, Florida, famously lamented while mourning his death.

“Good Times” rumbled on for another three seasons without its fatherly anchor, and with diminishing viewership each season until it concluded in 1979.

The actor’s actual death, at the age of 84, was made public on Tuesday although he died in August. The lag between his death and the announcement has widened a longstanding rift between his two children, Shannon Amos and K.C. Amos His daughter, Shannon, said that she had only learned of her father’s death through media reports.

“This tragic news has left us in shock and heartache,” Shannon Amos said in a statement attributed to her, close friends and family members. “We are deeply concerned that our father may have been neglected and isolated during his final days.”