Fred Baron (producer)

Fred Baron (born 1954) is an American film producer and studio executive, who currently serves as executive vice president of feature production at 20th Century Fox.

Baron was raised in Manhattan, son of two movie fans who would go as far as driving to Connecticut to see new pictures. He would inherit this appreciation for cinema, going as far as screening 16 mm films he got from a neighbor who worked at Paramount Pictures on his basement.

Baron received his Bachelor of Arts Degree from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1976, majoring in English Literature. He also studied criticism at St. Clare's College, in Oxford England. After leaving college, Baron went to Los Angeles to enter the movie industry, living in Malibu with a friend who was going to USC Film School. After a few months in LA, he got a job at Bullock's and eventually began his movie career in the mailroom at Universal Studios. After he met Lauren Shuler, a young producer who had gotten a job to run the West Coast Division of Martin Poll Productions, he decided to become a runner for Shuler. He became a production assistant on the first film made by the company, 1981's Nighthawks. Afterwards he worked on Continental Divide, where he met both his wife and producer Bill Badalato, who hired Baron as his assistant. Then Baron did varied jobs: location coordinator for The Man with Two Brains, Badalato's assistant in Top Gun, production assistant for Weeds, production associate on 1969, and first assistant director on Stand Alone.

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