Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 22, 1994 TAG: 9401220336
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-18 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK DAWIDZIAK KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
The actor was particularly upset because his character, James Evans, couldn't hold a job and provide an adequate income for his family. He also complained about the increasing attention given J.J. (Jimmie Walker), a scheming teen-ager who might become a dangerous role model.
So, in September 1976, viewers learned that James Evans had been killed in a car accident. After two seasons, Amos took a walk and Walker walked away from "Good Times."
"It was a bad thing for me because I had two kids in college at the time," Amos told critics. "We did have some very strong creative differences as to how James Evans should be portrayed and the part that the children would play in the show."
It was a tense time for Lear, who had six other series on the air in 1976: "All in the Family," "Maude," "The Jeffersons," "One Day at a Time," "Sanford & Son" and "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman." He really was TV's King Lear.
"Oh, you know, we had a time where I was pain in his ass and his in mine," Lear says of the "Good Times" dispute. "And we elected to conclude the relationship, creatively, at that time, and we maintained a strong personal relationship since."
So strong, in fact, that Lear is giving the actor Archie Bunker's house as a present. Amos stars in "704 Hauser" as Ernest Cumberbatch, a liberal auto mechanic living in the Queens house once owned by America's most famous bigot.
CBS has given Lear a six-episode order for the series, which will premiere later this season.
Cumberbatch? Well, Lear went all the way back to P.S. 67, his New York elementary school, for that name.
"For one year," Lear says, "a great buddy of mine was a fellow by the name of Elwood Cumberbatch. A big, tall, lanky . . . he might have been a Negro at the time, later a black, now an African-American. A wonderful kid. And I've never forgotten his name."
Lear, though, seems to have forgotten how to produce a hit series. His situation comedies of the '90s, NBC's "The Powers That Be" and CBS' "Sunday Dinner," have failed to find an audience.
But he hasn't forgotten how to be controversial, and "704 Hauser" will tackle issues facing the black American family.
"No one deals with controversial issues better than Norman Lear," Amos says. "The first thing Norman said to me was, `You know, John, this is going to be very controversial.' Almost as though he were forewarning me that, if you want to step out of the kitchen before the heat gets turned up, now's the time."
At 704 Hauser, liberal Ernest, a veteran of the '60s civil rights battles, often is arguing with his conservative son, Thurgood Marshall "Goodie" Cumberbatch (T.E. Russell). Ernest's wife, Rose (Lynnie Godfrey), uses her strong religious beliefs to play referee.
Diversity, Amos says, will be the key: "We are not a black monolith anymore. The diversity that exists in this room - in terms of our political philosophies, our attitudes in regards to life, sexual orientation - those very same things exist in every black family."
The difference from "All in the Family" will be the tone of the arguing.
"Neither Archie Bunker nor Michael Stivik really took the responsibility for understanding their passions," Lear says. "Nobody really did the homework. We're looking at this father and son differently. This man is a liberal because he understands what his liberal philosophy is all about. The son, in this new breed of African-American conservatism, really knows what the hell he's talking about."
by CNB