The John Hancock of Movie Men

The name Fred Quimby may not ring a bell, but you certainly know him.  (Well, those of us of a certain age will know him…) He is not a Northwest native, but he was a resident for several years, working in both local and national film distribution, making his mark here before moving on to even greater fame (or infamy) in southern California.

Fred C. Quimby was born in Minnesota in 1886, and began a career in journalism around 1903.  After just four years, however, he jumped ship and began managing a small nickelodeon theatre in Missoula, Montana. Then, after four years as a theatre manager, he jumped ship again, this time moving to the exchange side of the business around 1911. (“F.C. Quimby Pathé Sales Manager,” Moving Picture World, 1 December 1917, Page 1306.)

He rose quickly as an exchange man and came to the Northwest in 1914 when he was named District Manager for the Pathé Exchange. The position was based out of the Seattle office, which was under his jurisdiction, but he also managed the branch office in Spokane and, eventually, the one in Butte, Montana as well.  Quimby’s team of regional salesmen typically made their rounds of local theatres via automobile, not only to check in on existing clients and perhaps help them with advertising and promotion, but also to land contracts for future business, which were often negotiated year to year or sometimes season to season.

Quimby business career remained on the ascention. He was promoted to Northwest Supervisor in 1917, which expanded his territory to cover all of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and a portion of Nebraska, though he remained based in Seattle. (S.J. Anderson, “Seattle News Letter,” Moving Picture World, 5 May 1917, Page 829.) Quimby’s old position was taken by George Endert, a longtime member of Seattle’s Film Row who had only recently helmed the Greater Features exchange.

Less than 12 months later, however, Quimby announced he was leaving the Pathé forces to become the Northwest Manager for Exhibitor’s Film Exchange, the distribution arm of First National.  With a territory that spanned Washington, Oregon, northern Idaho, Montana and Alaska, Quimby would oversee the distribution of First National films which included, at the time, Charlie Chaplin’s latest releases as well as the Mutt and Jeff cartoons. ( S.J. Anderson, “Seattle Ship Builders Patronize Shows,” Moving Picture World, 10 November 1917, Page 909.)

But it was a short-lived marriage with First National, and the end of his time in the Pacific Northwest. Within weeks, Quimby was re-hired by Pathé in the newly-created position of Director of Exchanges, where he was put in charge of their nationwide selling operations, this time based out of the New York office. “[Quimby] is the kind of man who can take his coat off and go out and actually put a picture over for an exhibitor,” Pathé declared when they brought him back into the fold. “He has done it time and time again, and his idea is to train the entire Pathé sales force till every man in it can do the same thing.” (“F.C. Quimby Pathé Sales Manager,” Moving Picture World, 1 December 1917, Page 1306.)  Quimby made several tours of the country during his first few years as Director of Exchanges, and his impact on the organization was such that the field offices throughout the country set aside November 1919 as “Quimby Tribute Month,” with awards and prizes for the various Pathé exchanges that were outperforming. (“Fred C. Quimby Reports Healthy Trade Conditions in the Northwest,” Moving Picture World, 13 December 1919, Page 788.)

So Fred C. Quimby’s connection to the Northwest had been severed, but he was also near the source of his enduring success. In 1921 Quimby left Pathé, where he also served on the Board of Directors, and went into business for himself, spending two years securing the rights to several European films, then distributing them throughout the United States. After this he did a short stint at Fox, where he was in charge of the company’s short film subjects.  In 1927 he left Fox and joined Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to handle sales of their short films. (“Quimby M-G-M Short Subject Sales Head,” Motion Picture News, 11 March 1927, Page 866.) 

The move to MGM crystalized Fred Quimby’s film career. After a decade running their short film programs, in 1937 he was tasked with creating an animation department that would go up against, among others, Walt Disney. Working with studio animators that included Tex Avery, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, Quimby helped put together a cartoon powerhouse, which included the Hanna/Barbera suggestion to create an animated series featuring a cat named Tom and mouse named Jerry. 

Success came fast for MGM Animation.  Quimby’s group won their first Academy Award in 1941, for The Milky Way (1940), then began a simply amazing run in the Best Short Subject (Cartoons) category: at least one nomination at every ceremony between 1944 and Quimby’s retirement from MGM in 1956, with the exception of a single year.  All in all, the MGM Animation Department racked up 13 nominations and 7 wins during that time, with the Tom and Jerry shorts taking home four successive statuettes between 1944 and 1947.

But for all this success, the knock against Fred Quimby, at least in some quarters, was that he was a businessman and not an artist. He could be difficult as a department head, showed only passing interest in the creative process, was generally humorless and frequently at odds with his animators.  And, on top of everything, he LOVED taking credit for the department’s successes. One had to look only at the credits of a Quimby-produced cartoon for evidence: his name was as prominent onscreen as that of either Tom or Jerry, as if he himself had drawn the entire thing. (Fred C. Quimby, Internet Movie Database [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0703642/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm], accessed 6 July 2025.)

Quimby retired from the MGM Animation Department in 1956, and the following year the studio closed the outfit altogether. He continued to live in California until his death in 1965, at the age of 79.