Tough Cookie: The Wally “Famous” Amos Story cover art

Tough Cookie: The Wally “Famous” Amos Story

Tough Cookie: The Wally “Famous” Amos Story

By: Vanity Fair
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About this listen

Tough Cookie: The Wally “Famous” Amos Story, named the Tribeca Festival’s 2025 Nonfiction Audio Storytelling Award winner, tells the story of a Black pop-culture icon and cookie mogul, through his booms and busts spanning the American century, from the perspective of his daughter, Sarah Amos.

Famous Amos was an overnight hit, leading to a life of glamour, prestige, and cookies for Wally and his family—for a while. But all the charisma and fame in the world couldn’t save Wally from a string of bad business decisions and a family fractured by his choices.

From Vanity Fair, this six-part series unravels decades of family drama—alternately hilarious and heartbreaking—against a backdrop of ’70s and ’80s pop-culture nostalgia while asking the question: Can you ever really escape your family’s past?


2025 Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Teaser: Tough Cookie: The Wally “Famous” Amos Story

    Teaser: Tough Cookie: The Wally “Famous” Amos Story
    Oct 2 2025

    He started one of the most recognizable chocolate chip cookie brands in America, but this rags-to-riches (and back to rags) tale is the never-before-told story about how he made it happen/how it all happened. A first listen of the Vanity Fair podcast Tough Cookie: The Wally “Famous” Amos Story, coming October 29.
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    2 mins
  • Welcome To The World of Wally “Famous" Amos

    Welcome To The World of Wally “Famous" Amos
    Oct 15 2025

    A poor Black kid from the segregated South, Wally Amos would go on to be one of the most recognizable business and pop-culture figures of the 1970s and 1980s after launching Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies—before sadly losing it all. Join host Sarah Amos as she finally faces her father’s incredible but extremely messy legacy head-on in Tough Cookie: The Wally “Famous” Amos Story. Coming October 29.

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    4 mins
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