Fred Ott

Fred Ott

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, th...

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