He found his "dream location" at the old House of Pies on the Sunset Strip and began to renovate it with an eye toward a March 1975 grand opening. He sought help to save the company, and ultimately himself. Amos decided to sell his cookies as a full-time occupation in October 1974, after a long and searching conversation with a close friend. Famous Amos was seen in the Macys Thanksgiving Day parade every year from 1977 to 1981, as well as on the label of each cookie bag. He wrote up a business plan and approached some of his famous friends including singers Helen Reddy (1941-) and Marvin Gaye, who each contributed to his start-up funds. but as a child he had an innate spirit and gift to. Public Company, 550 Business Center Drive . The legal order came from the owners of the Famous Amos Cookie Company. He wasnt a businessman. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1986. Amos's penchant for cooking led him to enroll at the Food Trades Vocational High School, where he studied culinary arts for two years. In 2016, Wallace "Wally" Amos appeared on ABC's "Shark Tank," asking for $50,000, which would give the investor 20% stock in the company, The Cookie Kahuna, a Hawaii-based cookie company. I was like a kid in a candy store!". The episode is named "Famous Wally Amos: The Cookie King". [8], In 1979, Amos' long-time friend and publicist John Rosica introduced him to Literacy Volunteers of America. "There's a really high awareness of chocolate chip cookies now, and that was created by me." (714) 645-1395 African American entrepreneur Wally Amos founded the Famous Amos cookie brand. Amos elevated a product that was seen as an everyday item into a gourmet experience, says Szewczyk. Within months, Amos had opened two more West Coast franchises, and the New York-based Bloomingdale's department store had begun selling the gourmet cookies. There's no darkness, there's no subterfuge there. Fax: (847) 803-1186 . Famous Amos was selling $5 million worth of cookies by 1980, and just two years later sales had rocketed to $12 million. Each year, millions of delicious confections made by the company founded by Wally Amos are sold in stores nationwide. When a new job opportunity in Los Angeles backfired, Amos grew disillusioned with show business. Toops, Diane. Wallace Amos, Jr. was born July 1, 1936 in his parents' home in Tallahassee, Florida. Its like comparing a Rolls Royce with a Volkswagen, he said. Amos told Newsweek that when he saw his completed storefront, he was overjoyed. In April 2019, its current owner, Kellogg Company, announced plans to sell Famous Amos, the Keebler brand and its fruit snacks business to Ferrero for $1.4 million. I poured money into start-up costs, investing heavily in what I was sure was a brilliant future. ". But since the name was copyrighted by the original company Wally can no longer use the name " Famous Amos ". But. My heart left the company in 1985, Amos told Forbes. He turns to the on-lookers. Camden, New Jersey 08103-1799 ", Amos's name soon became synonymous with the crisp chocolate chip cookies he whipped up in his L.A. kitchen. Shortly before graduation, Amos dropped out of high school to join the United States Air Force. Freelance journalist. Although Wally Amos was introduced to chocolate chip cookies by his Aunt Delia and her old-fashioned recipe, when Amos started his own business he used a recipe by Ruth Wakefield, who is credited with inventing chocolate chip cookies at her Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, in the 1930s. Business First, (March 2, 2001): p. A21. They were saying I didnt even have the right to my own name, Amos said in Parade. That was the whole schtick.". He was born and raised in Tallahassee, Florida, until he was 12 years old. The Famous Amos cookie company is an American cultural icon. [15], On July 1, 1979, Amos married Christine (Harris) Amos, who later helped him design the early merchandise and packaging for Famous Amos cookies. Amos, the former talent agent, became a star in his own right. Money was so scarce for him and his family that he often had to walk four miles to and from school to save the bus fare. He was bom in Tallahassee, Florida, and grew up there until his parents divorced when he was 12. I deal in love." But he made a lot of bad decisions, his son says. His two factories were then making six tons of chocolate-chip cookies a week. Public Company Amos, Wally, and Stu Glauberman. A successful motivational speaker, he penned inspirational self-help books and received a 1986 award for entrepreneurial excellence from President Ronald Reagan. In the past five years, women in L.A. and throughout California have started creating a new future for custom car culture. . He became such a known figure culturally that he appeared as himself in the Taxi episode "Latka's Cookies", in 1981. How is he? Wally Amosentrepreneur, motivational speaker, and authorfounded the Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Cookie Company in 1975 selling bite-sized homemade chocolate chip cookies. A guy who loved people and loved life.. Amos dropped out of high school but earned his G.E.D. Every weekday, you'll get fresh, community-driven stories that catch you up with our independent local news. Hollywood tastemakers began to take notice: Id go to meetings with record company or movie people and bring along some cookies, and pretty soon everybody was asking for them, Amos told The New York Times in 1975. I sold the company and didnt realize I had sold my future along with it, Amos speaks of his decisions. "We might be related." By 1985, Famous Amos reported a $300,000 loss on sales of $10 million. [2] He earned his high school equivalency diploma[3] before being honorably discharged from the military. Culinary entrepreneur Wally Amos stands in front of the original Famous Amos store on Sunset Blvd. In 1992, he started producing high-priced hazelnut cookies under the name Wally Amos Presents. Wally was the only child in a loveless and impoverished Tallahassee marriage. In 1986 Amos was named recipient of one of president Ronald Reagans first Awards for Entrepreneurial Excellence. Having made millions with his gourmet cookies, Amos seemed to be riding highhe bought a beautiful home in Hawaii and spent untold nights flying across the country promoting his cookies. 1975: Opened first Famous Amos retail outlet. Almost overnight the effervescent Amos became a minor celebrity, both for the quality of his product and his enthusiasm for its promotion. Thanks in part to the success of his cookie company, he was hired to deliver speeches. As an. I have a fetish for chocolate chip cookies. He also worked as a talent agent and discovered Simon & Garfunkel. . His cookie shop, Chip & Cookie, is a couple of miles from his home in the oceanside community of Kailua. But later in life, due to financial troubles, Wally had to sell his cookie company. Box 419627 Because of his intelligence and high motivation to please others, he went, in a few short months, from mailroom worker to become a personal secretary to Howard Hausman, who was a senior vice-president with the firm. He quit high school, joined the Air Force, got his GED, and landed a clerical job in New York. You need a team, he said. The Shansby Group sued Amos for violating an agreement that forbade him to use his name and likeness on the packaging of any food products. Wally Amos Net Worth: $20 Thousand Childhood Private Life Career g, ght, nd Wght Additional Ventures Advertising Age (March 22, 1999): p. 6. If you respect your customers as friends, they will respect you and support you in good times and bad times, he said. Thanks to his amazing promoting ability, he grew the company from $300,000 revenue in the first year to $12 million by 1982. Amos continued writing, publishing his second book in 1988 (The Power in You: Ten Secret Ingredients for Inner Strength) and a third (The Man With No Name: Turn Lemons into Lemonade) in 1994. Andy Warhol came and they had cookies and milk and champagne. The shop cleared $300k its first year. This time, having learned from his previous business errors, Amos has employed a professional management team to run the dollars-and-cents end of the company. Before Mrs. Fields and the legion of cookie shops that now tempt us, Wally Amos was the proud owner of perhaps the first cookie-centric store in the United States. Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. Actually, Amos says, fame never really mattered much to him. Having launched a modest cookie-making venture in Hawaii, Amos was legally forbidden to use his own name, the Famous Amos tag, or his likeness, to describe any of his future endeavors. "The picture went with the company," he says. In April 2019, its current owner, Kellogg Company, announced plans to sell Famous Amos, the Keebler brand and its fruit snacks business to Ferrero for $1.4 billion. The Cookie Never Crumbles: Inspirational Recipes for Everyday Living. In an effort to revive his business, he sold a majority stake to a group of investors led by the investment firm Bass Brothers. It was the low point of my life, Amos recalled in Ebony. Famous Amos was bought by Keebler Foods in 1998, which pleased Amos. (February 23, 2023). "Amos, Wally He was sued by the owners of Famous Amos who successfully contended that Amos had relinquished the rights to use his name and likeness in marketing a food product. He had also started baking small chocolate chip cookies to give to clients and friends as a way of saying hello or thank you. an agent and by 1974, he was looking for something new. Beaverton, Oregon 97077 The Famous Amos shirt and hat are currently on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. After one year as a paid spokesman for . Amos is also the author of four books: the autobiographical volume The Famous Amos Story: The Face That Launched a Thousand Chips (1983), the motivational work The Power in You: Ten Secret Ingredients for Inner Strength (1988), The Man with No Name (1994), and Watermelon Magic: Seeds of Wisdom. The grand opening was a star-studded gala with over 1,500 people in attendance. He represented musicians such as The Temptations, Sam Cooke, and Marvin Gaye. Besides cookies and muffins, promoting literacy is his passion. By the early 80s, Americas cookie baron was clearing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, drawing national attention for the Literary Volunteer of America, and winning kudos from Ron Reagan for his free-market hustle. Mount Prospect, Illinois 60056 Mr. Amos is happy to do his part. Part of his responsibilities included booking acts such as the Temptations, the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, and Bobby Goldsboro, and he is even given credit for signing a then-unknown duo named Simon & Garfunkel. There is no other homeland or mother country. The former high school dropout has penned eight books, served as spokesman for Literacy Volunteers of America for 24 years and now gives motivational talks to corporations, universities and other groups. 1996: Uncle Noname released line of low-fat baked goods. In 1992, President Baking Company bought Famous Amos for $61 millionmore than 55 times what Wally Amos sold his controlling stake for just a few years earlier. Slices of Life (1996). Wally Amos's most famous creation, Famous Amos cookies. I realized that I could still be in the same situation 10 years from then., Amos borrowed $25,000 from Marvin Gaye, Helen Reddy and her husband Jeff Wald, and United Artists Records president Artie Mogull. Address: Office c/o Uncle Nonam Cookie Company, 984252 Pupuole St., Waipahu, HI 96797. Now living in South Carolina, 83-year-old Wally Amos has plans for one last venture, Aunt Della's Cookies. Cookies made him famous, but Amos has his own take: I want to be known as a guy who cared about people. In 1967 Amos decided to leave William Morris to manage the career of South African trumpeter Hugh Masakela. The day-to-day operations of the company required more money than it could generate.. It's as simple as that. "He worked with all the Motown acts, with the Temptations and Supremes," his son, musician Shawn Amos says. He decided to take a chance with his cookies. . The man beams. Wallace Amos, Jr. was born in Tallahassee, Florida, in 1936. When he sold Famous Amos in 1985, Wally . During its first year in business, Famous Amos had sales of $300,000 and Wally Amos's smiling face became increasingly well known since it was featured on every tin or bag of cookies. His fourth and longest marriage had collapsed, as had his business, with $108,000 in unpaid rent, but Wally was not deterred. "When Ray came to the studio, he told me the year we opened the store, in '75, was when he first moved to L.A. Famous Amos was the real star of the brand, appearing on packaging and merchandise in his signature straw hat and embroidered cotton shirt. He finally parted with the Famous Amos company in 1989. I have a fetish for chocolate chip cookies, Amos admitted in Ebony magazine. ''I was in Salt Lake City doing some promotion and I discovered that day that my house had been auctioned off,'' he recalled. The film was directed by Jeff MacIntyre. ", While "The Cookie" was supposedly the star, Amos's kindness and goodwill helped make Famous Amos successful. Around this time, in 1970, Amos, frustrated both personally and professionally, began to soothe his nerves by making cookies like his Aunt Della had done. Amos said hes always been in business to make friends, not to sell treats. He said yes on the condition that they craft the recipe closer to the original. "Amos, Wally 1937 The Famous Amos brand got backing from celebrity investors like Marvin Gaye and Helen Reddy, who gave Amos $25,000 for his new business. He ultimately lost the company to investors in 1988. How Did Famous Amos Lose His Company In the late 1980s, Famous Amos ran into trouble when sales of his cookies began to decline. Wally Amos had long ago lost control of Famous Amos, the cookie company he founded in 1975, and had even lost the right to use his name or the famous likeness of himself with his salt-and-pepper beard, Panama hat and embroidered Indian shirt. Similarly, why did Wally Amos lose his company? Encyclopedia.com. If you're enjoying this article, you'll love my daily morning newsletter, How To LA. After his parents divorced, his mother moved the family to Harlem, to live with her sister Della. "When I finally entered the cookie business full time, I acknowledged to myself that I had taken a beating and that it was time for a change," Amos writes in The Power in You. By the time Amos started his own LA talent agency, his roster was chockablock with sixties swagger: Diana Ross & the Supremes, Sam Cook, and Simon & Garfunkel were all friends. In 1987, he also hosted a television series designed to teach others how to read, entitled Learn to Read, produced by Kentucky Educational Television and WXYZ-TV. Since then, Famous Amos has expanded its in-store profile, branching out to more grocery stores, gas stations and big box stores. Born in tallahassee, florida, wally amos lived a childhood that was not always stable and trouble free. In the room of a youngster, he plays the kazoo until the boy pulls a pillow over his head. (AP Photo/Lucy Pemoni). Two years after opening his first store in Los Angeles, Amos was at the helm of a large corporation, selling cookies as well as other "Famous Amos" paraphernalia, worldwide. Of his experience living with his Aunt Della, Amos noted "for me, chocolate-chip cookies have always been an expression of love.". Famous Amos cookies began to be found in vending machines and in warehouse food clubs; the treats were marketed to people who had heard of the products but never had bought them. I'm happy to be back, and the people at Keebler are wonderful folks. Famous Amos founder Wally Amos and his son, Shawn, hang out in front of the Famous Amos store on Sunset Blvd. Lower Lake: Aslan, 1994. According to Amos, his success as an author and a motivational speaker is due in no small part to his Aunt Della: "[Aunt Della's] basic recipe for cookies became the foundation for much of my success. 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. That year, Wally Amos launched Wally Amos Presents hazelnut cookies. "I'm not concerned with whether people appreciate me or not. Amos remained on the companys board as vice-chairman, but he became increasingly dismayed as the venture was sold to one investment group after another. In the back of his mind, however, he considered the idea of selling his cookies. 'Famous Amos' became the vehicle to express my love in the outside world. Leading American Businesses. Financial backer Jeff Wald told Time magazine: We invested in [Famous Amos] for love, but as it turns out, it will probably be a better investment than any we ever made. The Amos household was characterized by a strict code of personal behavior. Racist Ex-University Of Kentucky 'Karen' Sophia Rosing Is Charged For Assaulting Black Student, Mississippi Cops Beat, Waterboarded Handcuffed Black Men, Shot 1 For Dating White Women': Lawyers.
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