Fred Ott

Biography

Frederick Paul Ott (1860 – October 24, 1936), a skilled machinist, was a key employee of Thomas Edison's laboratories from the 1870s until Edison's death in 1931. His likeness appears in two of the earliest surviving motion pictures – the well-known Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze (a.k.a. Fred Ott's Sneeze) and the little-seen Fred Ott Holding a Bird – both from 1894. The former became an icon of cinema itself. Shot in medium close-up, the film shows Ott seemingly taking a pinch of snuff causing him to sneeze. Comic in format, The Sneeze, as it also came to be known, was made in early January 1894 at the request of Harper's Weekly magazine, which requested illustrations for an article about the Kinetoscope. Ott began working with Edison in 1874 (at age 14) and became one of the inventor's most valued employees and closest friends. Alongside his brother John F. Ott, he worked with Edison on many inventions, retiring shortly after the nearly-simultaneous deaths of Edison and John Ott in 1931. Ott died at his home in West Orange, New Jersey on October 24, 1936.