Classic! This was before he was known as "James Evans" on Goodtimes. --Interview 2015--
Question--Your role on Mary T Moore was sort of your first big national exposure as an actor how was that so? John Amos---Back then you were lucky to be in the business in any working capacity. The idea that I would be in there as a writer, and then want to perform, too?
John Amos--That was just an abstract concept to the producers at that time. They weren’t ready for somebody who thought they could act and write. I had to wait until my turn came.
Ques.---When you say they weren’t ready, was it because you were young, or because you were African-American?
John Amos-I think it was a bit of both. I was just getting started, and that was my first network writing job. Although I had written comedy and performed on a local television show, Lohman & Barkley, which won an Emmy. In fact, we all wrote and performed, the “we” being the entire writing staff, which consisted of Craig T. Nelson, Barry Levinson, the late McLean Stevenson, amongst others. We were all just getting started, and that was wonderful training for us. Having written and performed on a local show that did successfully, I had every reason to believe I could do that at the network level. But they said, “No, you can only do one.”
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Ques.---I understand not every single person on the set had such advanced thinking - that one time someone on the crew made some pretty ugly comments toward you as a “joke.”
John Amos--It was so infrequent that happened. [The producers] created an atmosphere of tolerance so that if someone said something like that, they stood out like a sore thumb. One particular day, we were rehearsing a scene, and they wanted the photographer to shoot some good stills. And this one, let’s call him an “unenlightened individual,” said, “John, smile so we can see your teeth and we can know where you are.” There was complete silence on the set. I didn’t say a word or react at all. I knew that was coming out of left field from someone who was a little bit deranged, so no sense in me reacting. The next day that person was gone, never to be seen again. And he had been with the show since its inception. But his views on race got out of hand, and his mouth took control, and it cost him his job. They weren’t going to have anything that was going to be a disruptive factor on their set.
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Ques.---So how did you ultimately make the jump to performing, and to MTM?
John Amos--One day I had lunch with two of the writers on the [Uggams] show, Lorenzo Music and Dave Davis. And they said, "John, when you act out these sketches for our guest artists, we think you’ve got the chops. We’re involved in the development of something called The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and we think you’d be right for one of the characters." I just took it with a grain of salt. It sounded too good to be true. But later they stayed true to their word. When The Mary Tyler Moore Show [was picked up to series], they called me.
Did you have to try out for the gig?
John Amos--I auditioned for Mary, Grant Tinker, and the powers that be, and got the job as Gordy the weatherman. It became a recurring character.
-What was sort of great about Gordy is that he was a weatherman - and not a sportscaster. Back in the early 1970s, that was definitely playing against stereotype.What was indicative of Jim Brooks’s and Allan Burns’s sensitivity. They did not pander to the lowest common denominator in terms of stereotypes or cheap humor. In fact, they were so skilled as writers, they had Cloris Leachman - her character [Phyllis] - assume I was a sportscaster, because I was a fairly large guy and I was black. And those were the only faces you saw in any prominence on the TV screen in those days. So they played against that. They had her make that assumption, when in fact Gordie was a meteorologist, which blew Phyllis’s mind. But I loved it! It was going against the grain, and it showed their sensitivity. They capitalized on the stereotypical thinking.
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4 окт 2024
