Fred Ott(1860-1936)
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Frederick Paul Ott was a skilled machinist and key employee of Thomas A. Edison's laboratories. He began working with Edison in 1874 (at age 14) and became one of the inventor's most valued employees and closest friends. His likeness appears in two of the earliest surviving motion pictures - the well-known Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze (1894) (a.k.a. Fred Ott's Sneeze) and the little-seen Fred Ott Holding a Bird (1894) - both from 1894. Alongside his brother John Ott, he worked with Edison on many inventions, retiring shortly after the nearly-simultaneous deaths of Edison and John Ott in 1931. Fred died at his home in West Orange, New Jersey, on October 24, 1936.
