Wally Amos, a tireless entrepreneur who in 1975 took a $25,000 loan from some friends in Hollywood to start Famous Amos, one of the first brands to launch high-quality cookies in its own stores and one of the world’s best-known names in baked goods . goods, died Tuesday at his home in Honolulu. He was 88.
His children Shawn and Sarah Amos said the cause was complications from dementia.
At a time when tasteless, preservative-packed cookies were about the only thing available to consumers who weren’t blessed with a baker in the family, Amos’ candy stood out. Derived from a recipe he had learned from his aunt, they used real ingredients, no dyes or chemicals added, and he kept them as close to handmade as possible, even as his company exploded into national distribution in the early 1980s.
What began as a single store in Los Angeles that earned $300,000 in revenue its first year became a $12 million (about $42 million in today’s currency) business by 1981, with dozens of famous Amos stores across the country and packaged products which are sold in grocery and specialty stores as well.
The cakes were universally heralded as delicious, but a big draw was Amos himself. An energetic, ever-smiling pitchman known for his Panama hat and colorful Indian gauze shirts, he loved the stress of building a brand and continued to market it for weeks at a time.
Within a few years, he was practically a household name across the United States, appearing on the cover of Time and as a guest on the television sitcoms “The Jeffersons” and “Taxi” and, much later, “The Office.”
But as with many entrepreneurs, his passionate creativity was not matched by business acumen, and he struggled to maintain profits as the company expanded. He sold off shares in the 1980s and in 1988 sold the rest to a private equity firm, the Shansby Group, for $3 million.
This article originally appeared in New York Times.