Vanity Fair Launches Tough Cookie: The Wally ‘Famous’ Amos Story

Vanity Fair Launches Tough Cookie: The Wally 'Famous' Amos Story

Vanity Fair announcedthe launch of Tough Cookie, the narrative podcast about the legendary, larger-than-life Wally "Famous" Amos, available now wherever you get your podcasts.

Tough Cookie, named the Tribeca Festival's 2025 Nonfiction Audio Storytelling Award winner, tells the story of a Black pop culture icon and cookie mogul from the perspective of Wally's daughter, Sarah Amos.

What started with initial business loans from friends including singers Marvin Gaye and Helen Reddy, Famous Amos was an overnight hit that led 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?

The six episodes of Tough Cookie will drop weekly, with the first two episodes available now.

Episode 1: My Dad, Famous Amos

Episode 2: Don't Take Pictures in Hell

The series, brought to listeners in partnership with Pulitzer winner PRX, features friends and family members who, with Sarah, tackle whatit means to be a successful Black businessman in America, what celebrity culture does to those in its orbit, and what happens to an already-splintered family when its central figure passes away.