HONOLULU — Wallace “Wally” Amos, the founder of the cookie empire that took his name and made famous and who later became an advocate for childhood literacy, has died. He was 88.
Amos created the Famous Amos cookie empire and eventually lost ownership of the company — as well as the rights to use the catchy name Amos. In his later years, he became the owner of a cookie shop called Chip & Cookie in Hawaii, where he moved in 1977.
He died Tuesday at his home in Honolulu, with his wife, Carol, at his side, his children said. He died of complications from dementia, they said.
“With his Panama hat, kazoo and boundless optimism, Famous Amos was a great American success story and a source of black pride,” said a statement from his children, Sarah, Michael, Gregory and Shawn Amos.
They said their father “inspired a generation of entrepreneurs when he founded the world’s first cookie shop in 1975” on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.
Wally Amos also co-founded Uncle Wally’s Muffin Co., whose products can be found in stores across the country. But Amos said fame never really mattered to him.
“Fame is overrated anyway,” Amos told The Associated Press in 2007.
His muffin company, based in Shirley, New York, was originally founded in 1992 as Uncle Noname Cookie Co., a few years after Amos lost Famous Amos, which still extensively uses his name on its products.
Amos said the famous Amos cookies sold today are nothing like his cookies, which contain lots of chocolate, real butter and pure vanilla extract.
“You can’t compare a machine-made cookie to a handmade cookie,” he told AP. “It’s like comparing a Rolls Royce to a Volkswagen.”
However, Uncle Noname went under due to debts and problems with the contracted manufacturers.
In 1996, the company went bankrupt, stopped making cookies, and, at the suggestion of Amos’ business partner Lou Avignone, switched to muffins.
In his now-closed cookie shop in Hawaii, he sold small cookies similar to the cookies he first sold in the famous Amos Hollywood store.
Amos was also active in promoting reading. For example, his store had a reading room with dozens of donated books, and Amos would spend Saturdays sitting in a rocking chair, wearing a watermelon hat, reading to children.
This former high school dropout wrote eight books, was a spokesperson for Literacy Volunteers of America for 24 years, and gave motivational talks to corporations, universities, and other groups.
Amos received numerous awards for his volunteer work, including the Literacy Award presented by President George H.W. Bush in 1991.
“Your greatest contribution to your country is not your signature straw hat in the Smithsonian, but the people you inspired to learn to read,” Bush said.
In one of his books, “Man With No Name: Turn Lemons Into Lemonade,” Amos explains how he lost Famous Amos before the company was sold to a Taiwanese company for $63 million in 1991. Despite strong sales, the company was losing money by 1985, so Amos brought in outside investors.
“The new owners gradually swallowed up more of my share until I suddenly found myself without any ownership of the company I had founded,” Amos wrote. Soon the company had changed hands four times.
Amos was born in Tallahassee, Florida, and moved to New York City at age 12 due to his parents’ divorce. He lived with an aunt, Della Bryant, who taught him how to make chocolate chip cookies.
He later dropped out of high school to join the Air Force, after which he went to work as a mailroom clerk at the William Morris Agency, where he became a talent agent and worked with The Supremes, Simon & Garfunkel and Marvin Gaye before borrowing $25,000 to start his cookie company.
He was the first black agent in the industry, according to his son, Shawn Amos.
“Our dad taught us the value of hard work, believing in ourselves, and following our dreams,” his children’s statement said. “We also know he would love it if you had a chocolate chip cookie today.”
