meets Penny ( Janet Jackson), the daughter of an abusive mother ( Chip Fields). With Ja’net Dubois promoted to lead, Lear gave Willona a powerful storyline. Ja’net Dubois became the star – and got Janet Jackson as a daughter. In reality, Rolle chose to step away from the series.Ĩ. Florida and Carl eventually decide to stay there, as Carl is treated for cancer. Carl proposes to Florida at the end of the season and, when season five begins, the now-married couple is honeymooning in Arizona. “ we decided to write him out of the show.” Amos accepts some responsibility for the split, telling Jet in 2008, “I wasn’t the most diplomatic guy in those days.”įive months after James’ death (which took place off-screen), Florida goes on her first date with shop owner Carl Dixon ( Moses Gunn, Rolle’s former Negro Ensemble Company colleague). “By the end of the third season, John Amos was so glum and dispirited that it seemed impossible to go on,” Lear wrote. This led to frequent clashes, particularly about J.J. “With all the attention being paid, Esther and John began to feel a personal responsibility” for the series, Lear wrote in his 2014 book Even This I Get To Experience. (The Evans family lives there too, though the name is never mentioned.) Evans collaborated with Monte, a college friend who had grown up in the crime-ridden Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago. Evans played Lionel Jefferson on All In The Family and, when he expressed a desire to write, Lear offered him the Good Times pilot. Lear “developed” and produced Good Times, but the series was created by two African-American writers: Mike Evans and Eric Monte. When Good Times premiered three days later, the Evans family now lived in Chicago, Henry’s name was now James, and he no longer had a job.
In Florida’s Goodbye (airdate February 5, 1974), "Henry" Evans gets a promotion and Florida quits her job with the Findlay family to be a stay-at-home mom. Midway through season two, Florida and Henry were spun off into their own series, making Good Times a rarity: a spin-off of a spin-off.Ĥ. Her firefighter husband was introduced towards the end of the first season (played by Amos, but originally named “Henry.”). Rolle was often given Maude’s sharpest punchlines and Lear and the writers gradually expanded her role. And, beginning with episode three, she also had a maid: Florida Evans. Less than a year later, Maude had her own show set in the affluent suburbs of New York City. Lear’s All In The Family introduced Maude Findlay (Bea Arthur), the opinionated cousin of Edith Bunker (Jean Stapleton), in December of 1971. “ were actors, so they were thinking, ‘We’re acting.’ I came out as a stand-up.” “I came on to be funny,” Walker told PBS’s Pioneers Of Television. Walker was a comedian with only a handful of TV appearances when he was cast as J.J.
(Rolle was 53.) New Jersey native Amos was a pro football player who transitioned to acting, landing the recurring role of weatherman Gordy on Mary Tyler Moore in 1970. When Good Times began, Jimmie Walker was 26 and Amos – playing his father – was only 34. John Amos was just eight years older than Jimmie Walker Esther was one of the founding members of the Negro Ensemble Company, along with Rosalind Cash, Frances Foster, and her sister Rosanna Carter, who were all future Good Times guest stars.Ģ. She moved to New York City and worked in the garment industry before beginning her performing career with the African dance troupe Shologa Oloba. Rolle was born in Florida, the tenth of 18 children born to Bahamian parents. So grab a seat on the pull-out couch and enjoy these Dyn-O-Mite facts about the Evans family.ġ. Now, more than forty years later, getTV viewers can see what made Good Times one of the most groundbreaking sitcoms of its era. "It just became so big, and so associated with, that everything else got overlooked."Īnd yet, the show endured, and the storytelling remained resonant. "Dyn-O-Mite' became so huge it was everywhere," critic, film historian and author Karen Burroughs Hannsberry told getTV. After clashes with producer Norman Lear, Amos was written out, Rolle left, and the first-ever African-American family sitcom had lost its parents. Amos and Rolle pushed back, committed to their mission of depicting positive role models. emerged as the show’s breakout character, and he began to receive more screen time.
( Jimmie Walker), responsible Thelma ( Bern Nadette Stanis), and Michael ( Ralph Carter), the socially conscious youngest. Over time, stories shifted focus to their kids: loveable goofball J.J.
Esther Rolle starred as matriarch Florida Evans, John Amos was her hard-working husband James, and Ja’Net DuBois played their feisty neighbor Willona Woods. When Good Times debuted in February of 1974, it was a television first: a sitcom about an African-American family in an inner-city housing project.