Alvin Childress was an American actor, who is best known for playing the cabdriver Amos Jones in the 1950s television comedy series Amos 'n' Andy.
Alvin Childress as Amos, 1951
Childress as Jacques in the Federal Theatre Project production of Haiti at the Lafayette Theatre (1938)
Childress and Rex Ingram in the Federal Theatre Project production of Haiti (1938)
Amos 'n' Andy was an American radio sitcom about black characters, initially set in Chicago then later in the Harlem section of New York City. While the show had a brief life on 1950s television with black actors, the 1928 to 1960 radio show was created, written and voiced by two white actors, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, who played Amos Jones (Gosden) and Andrew Hogg Brown (Correll), as well as incidental characters. On television, 1951–1953, black actors took over the majority of the roles; white characters were infrequent.
An 1935 advertisement for the entertainment duo Amos 'n' Andy.
Freeman Gosden ('Amos') and Charles Correll ('Andy') in 1929.
Gosden and Correll celebrate the tenth anniversary of the show on NBC in March 1938.
Publicity photo of the pair while at CBS, circa January 1942