By Don Valentine
Author Horatio Alger created the “Opus” that hard work and honesty will help overcome obstacles and lead to success.” Wally Amos’ life story is baked in that cookie cutter mold. Amos was born in 1936 and raised briefly in Tallahassee surrounded by dysfunctional parents. Following their separation in 1948, Amos was sent to New York City to live with his aunt, Della Bryant. Aunt Della became his muse because of her fondness of baking homemade chocolate chip and pecan cookies. Amos told Biography.com, ‘“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.”’ The inclination for cooking led him to enroll at the Food Trades Vocational High School.
Amos dropped out of high school, and did a four-year stint in the Air Force. He left the military in 1957 and spent the next few years working in the stockroom at Saks Fifth Avenue. The store refused to give him a pay raise, so he took a job in the mailroom at the William Morris Agency. That led to a vertical move, to become the agency’s first Black agent. He booked many of the era’s top performers, including The Supremes, Simon & Garfunkel, and Marvin Gaye.
Amos formed his own management agency in Hollywood, but it was a struggle from the start. The experience was the first step on the path for him to earn a living doing something he had always enjoyed, baking chocolate chip cookies. He learned of his baking prowess by bringing cookies to his business meetings. In a New York Times interview he said, ‘“I began to bake as a hobby. It was a kind of therapy.”’ Their popularity convinced him to open his first Famous Amos store. Amos networked his contacts to get financial backing from singers like Marvin Gaye and Helen Reddy. In 1975 the first Famous Amos cookie store opened on Sunset Blvd. .
By 1985 the “Horatio Alger” success story turned south due to his mismanagement. He was forced to sell off his company in a piecemeal fashion. In a Los Angeles Times interview he said, ‘“My responsibility as I see it is keeping our visibility level very high. 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.”’ After selling Famous Amos, Wally Amos launched several cookie brands including The Cookie Kahuna, but nothing supplanted the Famous Amos brand.
He became a prominent motivational speaker and dedicated himself to ending illiteracy in the United States. From 1979 until 2002 he was the national spokesperson Literacy Volunteers of America. President George H.W. Bush presented him with the Literacy Award in 1991. To learn more read Cookie King by Jeff McIntyre.