Before He Was a Cookie Magnate, Wally Amos Discovered Simon & Garfunkel
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1936-2024
Who Was Wally Amos?
Entrepreneur Wally Amos was the founder of Famous Amos cookies. Prior to becoming a food magnate, he worked at the William Morris Agency, where he advanced from the mailroom to becoming the company’s first Black talent agent in 1962. As an agent, he signed Simon & Garfunkel and headed the agency’s rock ’n’ roll department. In 1975, he opened the first Famous Amos cookie store. A decade later, he began selling the brand, though he worked as its spokesperson after he lost his ownership. Amos launched several more cookie brands over the years and became a noted literacy advocate. He died in August 2024 at age 88.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Wallace Amos Jr.
BORN: July 1, 1936
DIED: August 14, 2024
BIRTHPLACE: Tallahassee, Florida
SPOUSE: Carol Williams
CHILDREN: Shawn, Sarah, Gregory, and Michael
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Cancer
Early Life
Wallace Amos Jr., better known as Wally Amos, was born on July 1, 1936, in Tallahassee, Florida. His father and namesake worked for an electric utility company while his mother, Ruby, was an illiterate domestic worker. Wally, himself, didn’t learn to read until later in childhood.
Following his parents’ separation in 1948, Amos was sent to New York City to live with his aunt, Della Bryant, who often baked homemade chocolate chip and pecan cookies. He later said of the experience: “We certainly had no monetary wealth, but aunt Della’s home was always rich in the principles and qualities vital to a child’s upbringing. And it was filled with the aroma of her delicious chocolate chip cookies.” Amos’ penchant for cooking led him to enroll at the Food Trades Vocational High School, where he studied culinary arts for two years before dropping out his senior year.
Music Agent
After a four-year stint in the U.S. Air Force stationed in Hawaii, Amos returned to New York in 1957. He spent the ensuing years working in the stock room at Saks Fifth Avenue and in the mailroom at the prestigious William Morris Agency.
In 1962, following a number of promotions, Amos became the first Black talent agent in the history of the William Morris Agency. Determined to make his mark by signing a blockbuster act, his tenacity was rewarded when he discovered Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, the singing duo better known as Simon & Garfunkel. He also helped sign The Supremes. Over the next few years, Amos headed the agency’s newly formed rock ’n’ roll department, where he worked with Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, and Sam Cooke.
In 1967, Amos left William Morris and moved to Los Angeles, where he struggled to set up his own personal management company. Burdened with the debt of his failing business, Amos began to take comfort in baking chocolate chip cookies. “I began to bake as a hobby,” he told The New York Times. “It was a kind of therapy.” He started bringing cookies along to business meetings. Their popularity wasn’t lost upon him.
Famous Amos Cookies
Amos saw an opportunity to leave the talent agent industry through his cookies. Using a modified version of his aunt Della’s recipe, he planned to open a freestanding cookie store.
With financial backing from singers like Marvin Gaye and Helen Reddy as well as an innovative marketing initiative that included an extensive advertising campaign and a gala grand opening, the first Famous Amos cookie store opened on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles in March 1975. Within months, 38-year-old Amos had opened two more West Coast locations, and the New York–based Bloomingdale’s department store had begun selling the gourmet cookies.
Amos and his cookie empire enjoyed a decade of success. However, in 1985, mismanagement forced Amos to gradually sell off parts of his company. He acknowledged as much in an interview with The Los Angeles Times that year. “My responsibility as I see it is keeping our visibility level very high,” Amos said. “The thing that got us in trouble is when I tried to actually run the business. That’s not what I want to do. I’m a promoter.”
In 1988, a corporation called the Shansby Group purchased Famous Amos Cookies and successfully repositioned the brand image, changing it from a specialty item to a lower-priced product. In 1998, the Keebler Company purchased the Famous Amos brand, and Amos resumed his role as the brand’s spokesperson.
Other Companies and Books
In 1991, Amos attempted to launch another cookie company, which he called Wally Amos Presents Chip & Cookie. The Shansby Group sued Amos for violating an agreement that forbade him from using his name and likeness on the packaging of any food products.
In the mid-1990s, Amos worked with partners, including Famous Amos distributor Lou Avignone, to launch a muffin company now known as Uncle Wally’s Family of Muffins. The company still produces various homemade-style and healthy muffins.
Amos continued launching additional cookie companies, including Chip & Cookie and The Cookie Kahuna, into his later years. In 2016, 80-year-old Amos appeared on an episode of Shark Tank in the hopes of finding investors for the latter. Unsuccessful in his efforts, he exited the company the next year but started afresh in January 2018 with Aunt Della’s. “This is my last company, I can tell you that for sure,” Amos told Charlotte magazine. “Put that on my tombstone: ‘He died starting one last cookie company.’”
Outside of his entrepreneurial work, Amos traveled as a motivational speaker and dedicated himself to ending illiteracy in the United States. He worked with organizations like Read to Me International, the YMCA, and Literacy Volunteers of America, serving as the group’s national spokesperson from 1979 until 2002. President George H.W. Bush presented him with the Literacy Award in 1991 for his efforts.
He even had a reading room at his cookie shop in Hawaii, where he relocated in 1977. Wearing a watermelon hat, he read to children at his shop on Saturdays. “I encourage parents to read aloud to children at least from birth to 6 years old. I’d really like them to do it beforehand while they’re in the womb,” Amos said in a MidWeek interview. That was the mission of the foundation he started in 2005.
Additionally, Amos wrote 10 books, including an inspirational work entitled Watermelon Credo: The Book. According to Amos’ website, his success as an author and a motivational speaker was due in no small part to his Aunt Della: “[Aunt Della’s] basic recipe for cookies became the foundation for much of my success. But it was her recipes for life that sustain me to this day.”
Wife and Children
Amos has three sons from his first two marriages: Shawn, Michael, and Gregory. He also has a daughter named Sarah with his third wife, Christine Harris.
Altogether, Amos was married six times to five women. He remarried his wife, Carol Williams, who was with him when he died from dementia complications on August 14, 2024. His children were also at his home in Honolulu at the time of his death.
Quotes
I have a fetish for chocolate chip cookies. I think it’s more than a fetish. I think it’s bordering on being fanatical.
I believe, along with many others, that you must first ask for what you want before you can have it.
In some areas I am more noted for reading then I am for cookies!
Many who resort to crime ultimately can’t read or write.
Being famous is highly—very, very, very highly—overrated.
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