John Amos was one of those actors fortunate enough ... or the one that first brought him fame: Gordy the weatherman on CBS’s The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Amos appeared roughly a dozen times ...

John Amos, who starred as the family patriarch on the hit 1970s sitcom ''Good Times" and earned an Emmy nomination for his role in the seminal 1977 miniseries ''Roots,'' has died. He was 84.

The eras and settings were wildly different, but the men he played were unquestionably John Amos characters ... and unflappable WJM weatherman Gordy Howard - and in commercials.