You may not know who Wally Amos is, but chances are you’ve had one of his cookies. The food entrepreneur became a household name in the mid ’70s as Famous Amos, with the first-ever cookie store in Los Angeles, after leaving behind a successful agent career at the William Morris Agency. Amos’s life was full and complicated, with all the trappings and triumphs of fame, family, and enterprise. He has existed as a legend to most of us for 50 years now, and his daughter, Sarah Amos, is telling a new side to his story—and her own. In the new podcast Famous Amos: The Truest Story of the Cookie Mogul, Amos, the VP of Development & Production for Condé Nast speaks to his sons, family members, and friends.
“I’ve spent most of my career being very guarded about my father and my family when it comes to my public persona,” Amos tells Vanity Fair. “In fact, a lot of people didn’t find out who my dad was until I started doing this podcast, or in some cases, when he passed. Chris Bannon, our head of global audio, and I shared an office wall for several years. Over the course of time, he’d hear these crazy stories about my dad, and he’d always say, ‘Sarah, this would make an incredible podcast.’ And it was after my dad had gone into a coma that I thought maybe this is actually a way to kind of work through a lot of things I had in my head—a lot of emotions and a lot of experiences, especially around that period of time that I knew I needed to process and talk about it.”
Amos’s father being a household name gave her a front-row seat to Wally’s life in and out of the spotlight. “In some ways, I got all the benefits and fun at times of having a famous father, but I also could easily take myself out of it. Because, to be honest, the last 20 years of my life, unless someone point-blank told you, no one assumes I’m Famous Amos’s daughter. Most people don’t assume Famous Amos is a real person anymore.”
But Wally Amos was very real, and quite possibly one of the most alive people when he was at the peak of his popularity. On Wednesday, the Tribeca Film Festival premiered a visual preview for the forthcoming podcast, one that was accented with Wally’s signature style, his presence, and his celebrity, including a picture of the mogul with Andy Warhol. At the trailer premiere, Amos confessed to the audience that Wally’s legend and his contributions to the Black community have made unearthing some of the less savory parts of her father’s past a challenge. “He is a man that did so much for other people,” she divulged. “In the days after he died, I really struggled wondering, Am I going to rip that apart? Am I going to tell the story of this legendary Black figure and it doesn’t make him look as good?”
Amos hopes to open the door to a conversation that many folks like her who were raised by parents who lived through American segregation pre-Civil Rights have never had. So much of the devastation and trauma that they experienced was buried as they shifted their energy to migrating north for more opportunities and safety. “My dad never talked to us about growing up in Tallahassee,” she revealed. “The stories we heard were here and there, and I do think because of it me and all of my brothers definitely have to figure out a lot more shit on our own or through other people we have in our family. But for me, the rest of my mother’s family was white.”
In the end, Amos believes her father would be proud of the togetherness his family achieved by working on this podcast project together—especially her having to step into the spotlight to bring it to fruition. “Nothing made him prouder than when his kids took center stage,” she told the Tribeca Film Festival audience. “He used to make me record the sound of my own voice as a kid so that I would get used to how that sounded and so I could be comfortable in a public persona, as an eight-year-old. So I think he would be at peace with it, therefore I’m going to be cool with it.”
Following Wednesday’s premiere, the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival announced its jury winners. Famous Amos: The Truest Story of the Cookie Mogul won the Nonfiction Audio Storytelling Award.
Famous Amos: The Truest Story of the Cookie Mogul will be available later this year.
