Television pioneer and Emmy-nominated actor John Amos was born John Allen Amos Jr. on December 27, 1939, in Newark, New Jersey, to John A. Amos, an automobile mechanic, and Annabelle P. Amos, a nutritionist. He was reared in East Orange, where he attended Stockton School and Columbian Junior High School before graduating from East Orange High School in 1958. Amos had been a star running back and worked on the school’s newspaper staff.
Amos’s acting career began in 1958 while he was still in high school when he played the convict in George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s play The Man Who Came to Dinner. Afterward, he enrolled in Long Beach City College in California.
Amos graduated from Colorado State University (CSU) in Fort Collins with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology in 1964, where he had been a member of the CSU Rams football team. After graduation, he was a Golden Gloves boxing champion. In addition, he had a short-lived professional football career beginning in 1964 with the Denver Broncos (AFL). He was released however on the second day of training camp because of a hamstring muscle injury. He later played with three other teams, the Canton (Ohio) Bulldogs and Joliet Chargers in 1964, and the Norfolk Neptunes in 1965. In 1967, Amos signed a free agent contract with AFL’s Kansas City Chiefs.
Amos was hired as a staff writer on Leslie Uggams‘ musical variety show in 1969. The next year he landed the role of Gordy Howard, the weatherman on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, where he remained for three years. It was his first big acting episode, and he was the only African American character in the series. He made his stage debut in a 1971 Los Angeles production of the comedy Norman, Is That You? The following year he appeared as Luther Jackson in Tough to Get Help at the Royale Theatre on Broadway.
In 1972 Amos played the unemployed husband of maid Florida Evans, played by Esther Rolle, in Maude. Two years later, in 1974, he reprised that role as James Evans in Good Times in the CBS television family sitcom series starring Rolle.
In 1977, at the 29th Emmy Awards, Amos was nominated for “Outstanding Lead Actor for a Single Appearance in a Drama or Comedy Series” for his performance in the television miniseries Roots, where he played enslaved Kunta Kinte as an adult. Eleven years later in 1988 he played Cleo McDowell, the protective father to Lisa, the African prince’s love interest in the Eddie Murphy‘s romance comedy, Coming to America.
In 2013, Amos delivered the keynote address for the Diversity Symposium at Colorado State University and in 2018, he received an honorary degree from Essex County College in Newark. In 2020, he was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in the Arts and Entertainment category, and he reprised his role as Cleo McDowell in Coming to America II in 2021.
Amos was married twice. His children are Shannon Amos and Grammy-nominated director Kelly Christopher Amos. John Amos, died of congestive heart failure on August 21, 2024, in Inglewood, California. He was 84.
