The creator of Famous Amos cookies, Wallace "Wally" Amos, has passed away. He was eighty-eight.
According to the New York Times, he passed away at his Honolulu home on Tuesday, August 13, from dementia-related issues, according to his children Shawn and Sarah Amos. In addition, he leaves behind his wife of 45 years, Christine Harris Amos, and his two other children, Gregory and Michael.
PEOPLE tried contacting Famous Amos's family as well as his present owners, but they did not receive a response right away.
Wally was born in 1936 in Tallahassee and transferred to live with his aunt, Della Bryant, in Harlem when he was just a young adolescent. After failing out of high school, he left New York for a short while (earning his G.E.D. soon after) and enlisted in the Air Force from 1954 to 1957.
Wally started out at a talent agency and worked his way up to become a cookie maverick. According to History, he began his career at the William Morris Agency mailroom in 1957 and went on to become the first black talent agent in the business. Simon and Garfunkel and the Supremes were then obscure artists that he signed to become superstars.
In 1967, Wally relocated to the West Coast to establish his own business and pursued a side hobby of baking.
"I started baking as a hobby; it was a form of counseling," Wally stated in a 1975 interview with the New York Times. "I used to bring cookies to meetings with people from record companies or the film industry, and soon everyone was requesting them."
Wally founded the Famous Amos Cookie Company in 1975, a Sunset Boulevard store, with financial assistance from music icons Marvin Gaye and Helen Reddy, who paid him $25,000 to get started, according to a 1999 New York Times story.
The cookies gained notoriety for its all-natural composition and lack of preservatives. The business brought in $12 million in sales in its first five years of operation, having made $300,000 in its first year. The one Los Angeles outlet expanded into several dozen locations around the country, and packaged goods started appearing in supermarkets.
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With the success of his cookies, Wally's name, contagious smile, and Panama hat gained notoriety. Wally received one of the first Awards of Entrepreneurial Excellence from President Reagan in 1986.
1988 saw the $3 million purchase of Famous Amos following some financial difficulties. The Ferrero Group is the current owner of it. Wally intermittently worked for the firm until returning in 1999 as a spokesman.
Wally lost the right to use his name and likeness when he sold the business. He went by several monikers, including Uncle Noname, Uncle Wally's Muffin Co., and the Cookie Kahuna, when he sold baked goods.
Wally was passionate in writing and reading. Wally also took up the role of spokesperson for the Literacy Volunteers of America in 1981, a group that specialized in training adults to read. Eventually, he penned a number of publications, such as The Road to Success is Paved with Positive Thinking and The Cookie Never Crumbles cookbook.
Read the original article in People, here.