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 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 off-screen car accident while preparing the family for a move to Mississippi.

“Damn! Damn! Damn!” actress Esther Rolle, who played Evans’ 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 last week although he died in August. The lag between his death and the announcement has widened a long-standing 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.”

As this family drama played out in public, accolades for John Amos poured in, with many highlighting his impact on “Good Times,” one of the first sitcoms to portray a Black family in a multidimensional way. Many also noted his somewhat acrimonious split from the show, and how he suffered the consequences of staying true to his beliefs.

Over the years, that was a topic that Amos himself occasionally addressed.

Amos and Rolle wanted the show to authentically portray a strong, Black family with two parents. They became dismayed by the increased airtime given to their characters’ oldest son, J.J., played by Jimmie Walker. He was seen as unserious and foolish, while his siblings had ambitions and worked toward their dreams. But his memorable catchphrase, “Dyn-o-mite!” became a hit with viewers.

“I felt too much emphasis was being put on J.J. and his chicken hat and saying ‘dyn-o-mite’ every third page,” Amos told the Archive of American Television in a 2014 interview. “But I wasn’t the most diplomatic guy in those days. And they got tired of having their lives threatened over jokes.”

Rolle quit the show after the fourth season, but returned for the sixth and final season.

“The fact is that Esther’s criticism, and also that of John and others — some of it very pointed and personal — seriously damaged my appeal in the Black community,” Walker wrote in his memoir, “Dyn-O-Mite! Good Times, Bad Times, Our Times.”

“John Amos was so glum and dispirited that it seemed impossible to go on, and we decided to write him out of the show,” Lear wrote in his 2014 memoir, “Even This I Get to Experience.”

In interviews, Amos sounded more realistic than saddened that he was written out the show. Amos joined “Good Times” after breaking through in his first major television role, Gordy Howard on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

amos lived in Colorado on and off throughout his life. He was a graduate of Colorado State University and played for the Rams football team. In 2023, Custer County officials investigated an acusation that he may have been the victim of elder abuse.

He was a former football player who had signed free-agent contracts with the Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs. He sometimes blamed his aggression on his background in the sport.

“There were several examples where I said, ‘No, you don’t do these things,’” Amos told Time in 2021. “It’s anathema to Black society. I’ll be the expert on that, if you don’t mind. And it got confrontational and heated enough that ultimately my being killed off the show was the best solution for everybody concerned, myself included.”

“They thought I was talking about a revolution here in the studio — and I was,” he continued. “I was a sign of the times that we just weren’t going to take any more, but hadn’t developed the social graces to express our disfavor.”

Over time, Amos and Lear mended their relationship.

“We dealt with our differences a number of years ago,” Amos told Entertainment Weekly in 2019. “In fact, I went on to do at least three other pilots for him. They all could’ve been very successful if they had been handled the right way by the media. Norman was one of the most dominant and creative forces on television at the time.”

Leaving “Good Times” hardly impeded Amos’ career. He starred in several memorable roles, including as the grown-up Kunta Kinte in the television miniseries “Roots” and as Cleo McDowell in “Coming to America.”

But for many, Amos’ largest impact was on the show he departed prematurely. He was a trailblazer, attempting to be true to himself and his community. Other Black patriarchal archetypes — the Cliff Huxtables, Philip Bankses, Carl Winslows — were descendants of the blueprint that Amos fostered.