When he learned about casting for the Amos 'n' Andy television series, Childress decided to audition for a role.

Childress originally tried out for the role of The Kingfish, but Charles Correll and Freeman Gosden cast him as Amos.

[11] Since he had been hired a year before the show began, Gosden and Correll turned the search for an actor to play "The Kingfish" over to Childress.

[16] In 1956, after the television show was no longer in production, Childress and some of his fellow cast members: Tim Moore, Spencer Williams, and Lillian Randolph along with her choir, began a tour of the US as "The TV Stars of Amos 'n' Andy".

Despite the threats which ended the 1956 tour, Childress, along with Moore, Williams and Johnny Lee were able to perform one night in 1957 in Windsor, Ontario, apparently without legal action.

[12] Childress also appeared in roles on the television series Perry Mason,[12] Sanford and Son,[18] Good Times and The Jeffersons[19] and in the films Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) and The Day of the Locust (1975).