From Good Times To Bad: Whatever Happened To The Cast Of Good Times?

On The Hollywood Blacklist

Monte’s vision for how he wanted to portray the Evans family on Good Times and the families on his other shows wasn’t in line with what Hollywood wanted, as he quickly came to find out. He told NPR that producers from the start wanted him to dumb down J.J.’s character (which Esther Rolle and James Amos had issues with) and also said, “the one note I got in every meeting, without fail, was you’ve got to get rid of the father. A strong, black man in a sitcom don’t work.” In addition to creative differences, Monte eventually successfully sued ABC and CBS in 1977 for using his ideas without giving him credit, winning in a one-million-dollar settlement. But unfortunately, that was the end of his career and he soon fell on hard times…