JOHN AMOS
`GETS ROARING OVATIONS'
(The Record (Bergen County, NJ)) VIRGINIA MANN,
Television Critic; 04-11-1994
John Amos glances up from his newspapers and over his eyeglasses. The
expression in his eyes, a fleeting one, is weary, wary, and just a little
sheepish.
This meeting at the Tewksbury Inn in Oldwick is supposed to proceed to his
nearby Hunterdon County home, an "unpretentious" rancher on about five
wooded acres. Amos, clearly just as happy to preserve his privacy,
explains politely but firmly that, because of renovations, there's been a
last-minute hitch and this charming restaurant will have to suffice.
On this April afternoon, he is at a corner table, discussing "704 Hauser,"
Norman Lear's new series about the black family residing at Archie
Bunker's old address in Queens, his role as artistic director of the John
Harms Center for the Arts in Englewood, and his theatrical showpiece,
"Halley's Comet." He also reminisces about the 51 poor, rich, rocky, and
rewarding years since his birth in Newark. It's a journey he especially
likes to share with young people.
"Educational outreach is his hidden agenda and his gift," said Jeffrey
Wells, president of the John Harms board. "He's very approachable. The
kids he talks to are in awe. John has an ability to talk straight from the
heart. He tells them to look at difficult circumstances as challenges in
life."
Amos has earned a reputation for committing himself to projects in which
he heartily believes, and extricating himself from those he does not.
Nearly two decades after Amos quit Lear's "Good Times" after a dispute
over what he perceived as negative racial stereotypes, he has the lead in
"Hauser" as Ernest Cumberbatch, a liberal Vietnam veteran and master
mechanic.
The situation comedy, which debuts on CBS tonight at 8:30, draws mainly on
the divergent political philosophies of Amos' character and his TV son, an
archconservative college graduate who opposes affirmative action and
"thinks Rush Limbaugh walks on water."
Amos says he was drawn to the series' humor, and praises Lear's refusal to
"back away from issues that are controversial. Norman's shows refuse to
pander to the least common denominator."
The admiration is mutual, as the two men appear to have long since patched
up their differences. "John happens to be one of the great comic actors of
our time," Lear says. "And it's infectious for all of us, the cast, the
actors, the crew. They just don't get any better."
While Lear did not want to talk about "Good Times," he said he always
respected Amos's work underneath all the conflict.
"It was pretty ugly," Amos says. "We patched things up. In fact, Norman
and I worked together on a pilot [series] that didn't work."
Initially, Amos seems serious and a little formal, but soon turns up the
humor and charm, along with that powerhouse persona, instantly
recognizable from roles such as Gordy the weatherman in "The Mary Tyler
Moore Show," James Evans in "Good Times," and the adult Kunte Kinte in
"Roots," Alex Haley's 1977 miniseries. " `Roots' was a great vindication
for me, because I had been one of five African-American students to
integrate the New Jersey school system at two different levels," says the
actor, whose family moved from Newark to East Orange when he was 2 1/2.
"Someone had decided that the Lackawanna Railroad tracks would be the line
of demarcation -- that all of those that lived on the west side of the
tracks would go to one school system, and all those that lived on the
other side of the tracks would go to another school system.
"As God would have it, I lived on the right side, or the white side, of
the tracks."
From third grade, besides the "usual stereotypical schoolbooks, filled
with negative racial stereotypes of African-American contributions," Amos
contended with verbal and physical harassment.
"It wasn't until I established myself physically as somebody who was not
gonna take any guff, that we got past the physical part of it," Amos says.
By the time he got to Columbia Junior High School, he had become an
imposing figure. "By then, there were about three or four kids to deal
with. There was Eddie Thompson, this blond-haired Irish kid, and there was
Joe . . . " He stops and laughs heartily. "I don't want to say his last
name, because I think he's graduated onto higher mobdom."
As a youngster, Amos had some brushes with the law.
"Nothing serious. I never hurt anybody. I took some things that didn't
belong to me, and I got caught and paid the price."
His worst punishment, he says, was seeing the look in the eyes of his
mother, Annabelle, who divorced his father when Amos was around 2. "The
last time I got locked up, she said, `If I ever have to come and get you
out of jail again, I'm gonna let them keep you,'" Amos recalls. "The idea
that she would turn her back on me, that I'd lose her respect and her
love, frightened me so badly and straightened me out." His mother died a
few years ago.
Amos was reminded of what might have happened in 1989, when he was filming
a scene of the Sylvester Stallone movie "Lock Up" in the mess hall at East
Jersey State Prison in Woodbridge.
"I knew a great many of the inmates. These were guys I'd gone to my first
party with or to the movies . We'd stolen our first bicycle together. But
they turned left and I turned right, or vice-versa."
There were some detours to the right, too. One was football. After
junior college in Southern California, he won a football scholarship to
Colorado State University, majoring in sociology.
Later, Amos asked for a tryout with the Denver Broncos. "That was the
first pro contract I signed, and I got kept 24 hours, primarily because I
had pulled a hamstring."
He moved on to a semipro team in Ohio, the Canton Bulldogs, lasting a six
weeks. "The hamstring didn't come around, so they cut me," he says. Over
the next three years, he played for 11 more teams.
"That was my whole world, being a professional football player, and when
that didn't work out, I just had to look and assess my talents and
aspirations." He decided his strengths were storytelling and performing.
"So far, so good," he says with a wink and a knock on the wood table.
After a stint in New York as a social worker by day and a stand-up
comedian by night -- and one more failed attempt at football, Amos moved
to Los Angeles in the late Sixties. He landed a job writing and performing
for an ensemble comedy show.
He also held a full-time job as an advertising copywriter. As a joke, he
devised a campaign for an embalming machine that showed a cadaver on a
table, hooked up to gas pumps, and the slogan, "You bring 'em in, we fill
'em up." His boss gave him a month to rethink his priorities.
Amos chose show business. Other television writing credits followed, and
within a few years, he wound up on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," in the
recurring role of Gordy the weatherman from 1970 to 1973.
"It was the most trouble-free environment that I've ever worked on," Amos
recalls.
The same could not be said of his next TV project, "Good Times," in which
Amos played the chronically unemployed James Evans. His "major bone of
contention was that so much emphasis was put on J.J.'s [Jimmie Walker]
character -- the buffoon, and a negative stereotype." When Amos quit in
1976, his character was killed off.
"Within a year, I was cast as the adult Kunte Kinte in David Wolper's
`Roots,' and that finally established me as a dramatic actor." The role
also earned him an Emmy nomination. For 15 years, he lived mostly in
Hollywood.
"I became caught up, with material things, with toys and cars, and all the
madness that goes with it, coming from a deprived childhood. But now, the
important things are my children and granddaughter and just having access
to the John Harms theater."
On another rainy morning, the theater is closed, and Amos and Ted Rawlins,
the producing director of John Harms, are at the concession stand, making
coffee and picking through a bag of bagels.
Amos is jubilant over news that his 23-year-old son, K.C., a student at
California Institute of the Arts, has won first prize in a film festival
for a live-action short, based on an incident that involved Amos's
80-year-old father. John Amos Sr., like Ernie Cumberbatch, is a
master mechanic. In his grandson's film, the elder Amos reenacts his
apprehension of a thief siphoning gas from a camper on his property.
Amos also has a 25-year-old daughter, Shannon, from the first of two
unsuccessful marriages he declines to discuss. Amos, who shares his
home with his companion of several years, actress Madeline McCray, has no
qualms about touring with "Halley's Comet," a one-man play he wrote and
stars in.
The play was inspired by an old man he observed while trying to get a
glimpse of the comet in 1986. "I said to myself, `I'll bet you this guy's
old enough to have seen it twice.' And I just began to imagine what it
would be like to have lived that long."
Amos and Rawlins met and collaborated at the American Stage Company in
Teaneck. There, Rawlins allowed Amos to present "Halley's Comet" as a
one-act play in May 1990. Rawlins encouraged Amos to write a second
act. After he did, he began to tour more. Among the play's many stops: the
National Black Theater Festival in Winston-Salem, N.C., and in coming
months, London and Bermuda. "He doesn't get standing ovations, but
roaring, leaping ovations," Rawlins says.
Amos, who touches base with Rawlins about theater business at least five
times a day when he's traveling, says that while he has enjoyed all his
work, "Halley's Comet" and theater are his first love.
Besides reading new plays and developing new talent, Amos says he's
grateful to plug theater as an alternative.
"If a kid can be involved in a production, either behind the scenes or on
stage, and their self-esteem lifted, to the point where they don't get
involved in negative lifestyles, that just doubles my pleasure."
Illustrations/Photos: 1 - COLOR PHOTO - THOMAS E. FRANKLIN / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
- A strict mother, a failed football career, and a stint in advertising gave
John Amos a push into acting. 2 - PHOTO - The cast of "704 Hauser," clockwise
from top: T.E. Russell, Moira Tierney, John Amos, and Lynnie Godfrey. The
program,
set in Archie Bunker's former Queens home, starts tonight on CBS. 3 - PHOTO
- AL PAGLIONE / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER - In the 21 years since John Amos sat for
this photo, his career has touched television, film, and live theater. "So far,
so good," he said. |
