“You can’t compare a machine-made cookie with a handmade cookie,” Mr. Amos told MSNBC in 2007.
“It’s like comparing a Rolls-Royce with a Volkswagen.” The cookies were widely proclaimed delicious, but a big draw was Mr. Amos himself.
“The first couple of years after I left Famous Amos, I didn’t even make cookies anymore, and I used to always make cookies at home.
I shaved my beard and stopped wearing hats.” In 1991, he launched a new cookie venture, Wally Amos Presents, but the owners of Famous Amos sued him for trademark infringement.
Mr. Amos never seemed to mind that he had built and lost a famous brand.
Indefatigable Wally Amos, one of the world’s most recognizable names in baked goods, passed away on Tuesday at his Honolulu home. In 1975, Amos used a $25,000 loan from a few friends in Hollywood to launch Famous Amos, one of the first companies to promote premium cookies in its own stores. He was eighty-eight.
Dementia complications, according to his children Shawn and Sarah Amos, were the reason.
Mr. Dot Amos’s confections were unique during a period when consumers without a baker in the family could only find flavorless, preservative-filled cookies. He kept them as close to handmade as possible, even as his company grew into a nationwide distribution force in the early 1980s. The recipe was based on one he had learned from his aunt, and they used real ingredients with no coloring or chemicals added.
From its start as a $300,000-a-year Los Angeles store, the company grew to become a $12 million enterprise (roughly $42 million in today’s dollars) by 1981. It also had dozens of Famous Amos stores nationwide and packaged goods that were sold in department stores and supermarkets such as Bloomingdale’s.
According to Mr. Amos, a handmade cookie cannot be compared to a machine-made cookie from 2007 MSNBC. It’s akin to contrasting a Volkswagen and a Rolls-Royce. “.
Many people declared the cookies to be delicious, but Mr. Dot Amos was the main attraction. A vibrant, perpetually cheerful salesman, recognizable for his Panama hat and vibrant Indian gauze shirts, he cherished the hectic process of creating a brand and would spend weeks traveling to promote it. His shirt and his hat are currently in the possession of the Smithsonian Institution. ).
On Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard, his first store turned into a tourist destination in and of itself. He would regularly persuade the city to close down the block in front for a street party, which he made sure was attended by celebrities, and the opening day would draw thousands of people.
Hey, Mr. Amos was a former talent agent who treated his cookies like a client. He recognized the value of developing a personal brand decades before it was practically necessary, and the door to the kitchen of the shop had a star on it, just like an actor’s trailer.
However, his intense inventiveness was not matched by business sense, as was the case with many entrepreneurs, and he found it difficult to maintain profits as the business grew. During the 1980s, he sold off his equity stakes, and in 1988, he sold the remaining portion to the Shansby Group, a private equity firm, for $3 million, which is equivalent to $8 million today.
Hey, Mr. As a paid spokesperson, Amos worked for the company for a year before quitting out of frustration. By then he had made a name for himself as a speaker and author, entertaining audiences and readers with tales of his uprising and advice on how to succeed in business.
He also started to promote literacy in young children. He didn’t learn to read until he was older, just like his mother had never done. He was closely involved with Literacy Volunteers of America, and in 1987 he started hosting “Learn to Read,” a public-access cable TV program. “.
Years later, after he had returned to selling cookies and opened a small shop close to his Honolulu home, he set aside a room next to it that was filled with kid-friendly literature. He would spend hours reading to kids in a rocking chair every Saturday.
Wallace, Jr. was born in Tallahassee, Florida, on July 1, 1936. His mother, Ruby (Hall) Amos, was a domestic worker who subsequently assisted in running Mr. Amos’s first store. His father was employed by the neighborhood electric utility company.
At the age of twelve, Wally’s parents separated, and he went to live in Harlem with his aunt, Della Bryant, a master baker. He decided to pursue a career in cooking after becoming enthralled with her oven skills. He received an apprenticeship in the kitchen of the upscale Essex House hotel while attending the Food Trades Vocational High School in Manhattan.
Dear Mr. Following his return to New York, Amos enrolled in secretarial classes before starting a job at the William Morris talent agency’s mailroom. He advanced to the rank of junior agent by 1961, becoming the first Black person to do so both within the agency and nationally.
He organized package tours for Motown performers like Marvin Gaye and the Temptations while he was employed there. Once more, though, racism hampered his career, so he jumped at the chance to relocate to Los Angeles and start his own agency.
Representing mid-level actors and musicians, he barely made ends meet for almost a decade. He found himself baking cookies at night to decompress, then bringing them to pitch meetings and movie shoots.
Finally, a friend recommended that he start his own baking company. He leased a building on the seedier eastern end of Sunset Boulevard with a $25,000 investment from Mr. Gaye, singer Helen Reddy, and a few others. It was born, Famous Amos.
Dear Mr. Amos was always honest about the choices he made that caused him to lose control of his brand and about the difficulties he had building it.
In 1999, he told The Times, “I’d lost the company really because I didn’t use to listen to people because I was Famous Amos.”. “In the initial years following my departure from Famous Amos, I stopped baking cookies altogether, even though I used to bake cookies every day at home. The truth is, I really didn’t want to discuss chocolate chip cookies. I stopped donning hats and shaved my beard. “.
He started Wally Amos Presents, a new cookie company, in 1991, but the owners of Famous Amos sued him for violating their trademark. He renamed the business Uncle Noname out of frustration. Following two years of legal battle, they finally came to an agreement whereby he could go by Uncle Wally as long as he didn’t sell cookies; he chose to sell muffins instead.
Even though it wasn’t quite as successful as Famous Amos, Uncle Wally’s brand was still successful and eventually sold out of Mr. Dot Amos’s company, ending up in about 5,000 retail locations.
Carol Williams, who survives him, was his most recent spouse out of his four marriages. In addition to his two other sons, Michael and Gregory, seven grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren, he is also survived by his daughter Sarah and son Shawn.
Alright, Mr. Over the previous 20 years, Amos created other brands, such as Aunt Della’s and Cookie Kahuna, but none of them became successful. He made an appearance on the business reality TV show “Shark Tank” in 2016, offering a $50,000 investment for a 20 percent share in Cookie Kahuna. However, the investors, or “sharks,” all passed.
Mr. It never seemed to bother Amos that he had created and lost a well-known brand. Even just making cookies satisfied him in the end.
He stated to Honolulu magazine in 2014 that “being famous is highly—very, very, very highly—overrated.”. “I am lucky that despite all of the trials and ups and downs I have gone through, I can still make cookies that taste good. “.
