Famous Amos Chocolate Cookie Corp

Norman N. Broadhurst joined Kerr Glass Manufacturing Corp. in the new position of senior vice president and general manager of the consumer products division. Broadhurst had been president and chief operating officer of Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Cookie Corp.

Sidney Ross, former president and chief executive officer of the Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Cookie Corp., pleaded no contest Thursday to five misdemeanor counts of improperly operating an immigration amnesty consulting business. Ross, 44, was placed on 30 months probation by Municipal Court Commissioner Barry Kohn and ordered to pay more than $10,000 in fines, investigative fees and charitable contributions. His downtown Los Angeles immigration business, El Norte Corp.

In 1985, an investment group that included former Sen. John V. Tunney (D-Calif.) and New York garment industry executive Sidney Kimmel bought control of Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Cookie Corp. hoping to make some dough. It didn't. Sales of the Van Nuys company's upscale cookies remained flat at about $10 million a year. Instead of expanding the number of Famous Amos stores from 70 to 100 as was predicted then, the number was slashed to about 50.

They don't call him Famous Amos for nothing. From his trademark white hat to his signature grin to the clown-festooned suspenders he wore Tuesday, Wally Amos was every bit the self-acknowledged promoter who became the widely recognized father of the fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookie craze.

The former president and chief executive officer of Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Cookie Corp. was charged Thursday with 63 criminal business practices in the operation of an amnesty consulting firm.

It was like the high school prom all over again, complete with sober suitors and invitations waiting to be extended. But no one was searching for a dancing partner Tuesday morning; instead, they were looking for money, and lots of it. Eighteen emerging Southland companies got nine minutes each to attract a date from a venture capital firm. And they went about it with a variety of styles, from bold to polite to stammering.