#Goodtimes complete series series

“Wherever she was, you knew she was there,” he said after she died. Norman Lear, creator of Good Times, told The Associated Press that he cast Rolle as Florida Evans because she had a strong presence.

#Goodtimes complete series series

Viola Davis will reprise the role of Florida Evans.Įsther Rolle Wins Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Special | Emmys (1979) Esther Rolle wins the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series Special for her work SUMMER OF MY GERMAN SOLDIER at the 31st Emmys in 1979. Woody Harrelson and Marisa Tomei are playing Archie and Edith Bunker. On December 18, 2019, ABC is bringing back the iconic television programs All in the Family and Good Times live before a studio audience. “Afflicted with diabetes, Esther’s health failed in the 1990s and toward the end of her life she was on kidney dialysis,” reports. She died in a hospital at the age of 78 years old. How did she die? What was her cause of death? She had diabetes and was undergoing dialysis, according to The Associated Press. Esther Rolle died in Los Angeles in 1998. But she was defined by, and is remembered by, the character Florida Evans, the family matriarch in the television sitcom, Good Times.Īlthough her memory lives on in the public’s mind through that character especially, Rolle died years ago. And it was in that role, as Florida Evans in Good Times – a show that never quite lived up to the promise that she and some of the other cast members had believed it could fulfill – that she would always be remembered.Esther Rolle played the matriarch of the Evans family - Florida Evans.Įsther Rolle played more than one iconic role in Hollywood productions. Rolle continued to work steadily in film, television and onstage, and in 1979 won an Emmy for her role in Summer of My German Soldier. She died in 1998, credited with being one of the premier Black actresses who did the most to smash the color line on TV. Good Times, which had started so promisingly as a show devoted to an actual, if comedic, depiction of Black life, had become just another goofy sitcom in an era dominated by them. In a desperate bid to shore up the show's popularity, the producers convinced Rolle to come back for a final season in 1978-79, but the damage had already been done. The show's ratings were already sliding by that point, and even the addition of Janet Jackson to the cast for the fifth season - as a traumatized young girl taken in by Willona - couldn’t save them. A year later, in March 1977, Rolle, too, left the show that had been created for her the writers handled this departure by having her meet and marry a man named Carl Dixon (Moses Gunn) and move to Arizona. The writers handled it by having James Evans die in an automobile accident while visiting the south, leaving Florida a widow. … I resent the imagery that says to Black kids that you can make it by standing on the corner saying 'Dyn-o-mite!'įierce disagreements among actors and producers over the difference between the show's initial socially conscious premise and the new direction it was taking led to Amos being fired from the show after the third season.

As Rolle put it in a 1975 interview with Ebony: 'He's 18 and he doesn't work. Watch Esther Rolle's Best Moments on 'Good Times'Īmos and Rolle, who both had activist inclinations of their own, were displeased by the turn the show was taking. The show initially used all of these characters to create a distinct atmosphere of life in a Chicago housing project and to tackle social issues. There were also several recurring supporting characters: a divorcee named Willona Woods who was Florida's best friend, the annoying building super Nathan Bookman, a local alcoholic named Ned the Wino, a neighborhood pimp, the local alderman and others. And there were the usual conflicts between the parents and kids over the topics of the day – whether the kids had jobs, whom they were dating and Michael's social activism. James worked several jobs at the same time, struggling to keep the family out of poverty, while Florida worked to keep the family together. The initial structure of the show was familiar to audiences and in particular those who were familiar with All in the Family and Maude. Set in a poor neighborhood in Chicago, the show tells the story of Florida and James Evans (John Amos) and their three children: J.J., Thelma and Michael (played by Jimmie Walker, Bern Nadette Stanis and Ralph Carter, respectively). 8, 1974, it was the first American TV show to be a spin-off of a spin-off and the first to portray a Black family of the type that in its white incarnations had been dominating sitcoms since the '50s. Rolle's character was so popular that less than 18 months after the first episode of Maude, Rolle was given a spin-off of her own, Good Times.