The Death Of Wallace Amos Jr, 'Famous Amos', Has The Food World Shaken

On Tuesday, Wallace "Wally" Amos Jr., entrepreneur and founder of Famous Amos cookies, died peacefully at his home in Honolulu with his wife, Carol, by his side. "With his Panama hat, kazoo, and boundless optimism, Famous Amos was a great American success story, and a source of Black pride," his children said in a statement. The cause of death was complications related to dementia. Amos was 88.

Born in Tallahassee, Florida, Amos moved to New York at 12. While he dropped out of high school to join the Air Force, he eventually returned to New York to finish a business degree. After getting a job as a mailroom clerk at the William Morris Agency, Amos worked his way up to become the agency's first Black talent agent.

Even before he became "famous Amos," Amos had his brush with fame. At the agency, he signed some of the biggest acts of the 1960s, including Simon and Garfunkel and The Supremes. His secret to success? The homemade cookies he brought to business meetings.

Eventually, Amos quit the entertainment industry. While friends urged him to open a cookie store, Amos worried that a store selling nothing but chocolate chip cookies was doomed. But the idea received an outpouring of support. Client Marvin Gaye contributed $25,000. Former colleagues helped him create an image that the New York Times described as "a Colonel Sanders of chocolate chip cookies." In 1975, he opened a store on Sunset Boulevard.

The cookies were a hit. Flavors were limited to chocolate chip with pecan, chocolate chip with peanut butter, and butterscotch chip with pecan, but customers didn't mind the lack of variety. By 1981, the company was worth $12 million. However, sales lagged in the late '80s and Amos sold the company for $3 million in 1988.

Wallace Amos admitted that fame got to his head. ”I'd lost the company really because I didn't used to listen to people a lot because I was Famous Amos,” he told the New York Times in 1999. With the company went the rights to his name and image — and the original recipe. In interviews, Amos frequently expressed his distaste for the reformulated, mass-market version. Amos attempted several other ventures selling cookies and baked goods, with limited success. He also found work as a motivational speaker, wrote several books, and advocated for literacy. In his later years, he moved to Hawaii, where he opened a modest cookie shop. There, Amos often read to local children.

Amos told NPR that love was part of his secret recipe. "[The cookies] respond to it... they feel that love," he said. Amos also revealed that he talked to his cookies — and, if they were obstinate, he gave them a blast from his kazoo. Amos' family asked fans to donate to the Alzheimer's Association in his memory, adding, "We also know he would love it if you had a chocolate chip cookie today."