No longer Famous, Wally Amos still baking

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“We are very proud of our Famous Amos cookies and believe we’re producing high-quality, great-tasting product,” she said.

Charles wouldn’t disclose revenues for Famous Amos, but noted it was the company’s fastest-growing cookie brand.

Amos’ fragrant store is as much about reading as it is about cookies. At one side is a reading room with dozens of donated books and Amos usually spends Saturdays sitting on a rocking chair, wearing a watermelon hop hat, reading to children.

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Besides cookies and muffins, promoting literacy is his passion.

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. His speaking fee runs $10,000 to $20,000, according to a booking agency’s Web site.

Amos has earned numerous honors for his volunteerism, including the Literacy Award presented by President George H.W. Bush in 1991. “Your greatest contribution to your country is not your signature straw hat in the Smithsonian, but the people you have inspired to learn to read,” Bush said.

Amos said he’s always been in business to make friends, not to sell treats.

“If you respect your customers as friends, they will respect you and support you in good times and bad times,” he said. “And I guarantee, you’ll experience both.”

In his book, “Man With No Name: Turn Lemons Into Lemonade,” Amos explains how he lost Famous Amos even before it was sold it off for $63 million to a Taiwanese company in 1991.

Despite robust sales, by 1985, the business was losing money, so Amos brought in outside investors.

“The new owners gobbled up more of my share until all of a sudden I found I had lost all ownership in the company I founded,” Amos wrote. Before long, the company had changed ownership four times.

Amos acknowledges making “some really bad decisions,” such as being too controlling and not listening to others who were advising him to do things differently.

Amos said he has since learned how much greater the success can be with a good team.

“Having your face or company named after you, you can’t take that to the bank. You need a team,” he said. “I’m a promoter — I’m not a business guy. I’m not a production guy. I’m not a purchasing guy.”

Born in Tallahassee, Fla., Amos moved to New York City at age 12 because of his parents’ divorce. He lived with an aunt, Della Bryant, who taught him how to make chocolate chip cookies.

He later dropped out of high school to join the Air Force before working as a mailroom clerk at the William Morris Agency, where he became a talent agent, working with The Supremes, Simon & Garfunkel and Marvin Gaye before borrowing $25,000 to launch his cookie business.

Cookies made him famous, but Amos has his own take: “I want to be known as a guy who cared about people. A guy who loved people and loved life.”

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