George Newell Armsby was an American entrepreneur, most noted for his drive toward corporate mergers in the first half of the 20th century: first the merger of California food companies that resulted in California Packing Corporation, which sold under the Del Monte and Sunkist labels. Armsby was on the board of numerous corporations, including Curtiss-Wright, Universal Pictures, Bancamerica-Blair, and many others. He was associated throughout his business life with John Cheever Cowdin, with whom he ran Universal Pictures; they were also both involved in the formation of Transcontinental Air Transport, Inc., which was later a foundation of TWA.
In the mid-1910s he conceived a plan to unite California's food-packing companies under a single association, and he went to New York to secure the $16,000,000 in financing necessary to do it. Blair & Co. and William Salomon & Co. lent him the funds, and California Packing Corporation was founded.
Blair-Salomon
After serving on the Priorities Commission of the War Industries Board, her persuaded his two lenders on the CalPack deal to merge and he went to work for the new concern, Blair & Co., Inc. In time, the new enterprise was bought by Transamerica, and Armsby found himself working under his friend and fellow fruit-grower Amadeo Giannini. In time, this link would prove crucial to Armsby's next venture.
As his business ventures soared, Armsby's personal life was no less colorful. His marriage to Leonora disintegrated, and in March 1929 she sued for and was granted a divorce in the San Francisco courts, alleging that Armsby had abandoned her in New York in 1924. The subsequent divorce settlement of $1,000,000 made the papers as far away as Helena, Montana. Notably, Leonora retained the Armsby name until her death in 1962. Armsby's personal life made the papers next year when, in March 1930, he announced that he was marrying, at age 54, a 36-year-old woman, Colette Touzeau, whom the N.Y. Times and other papers tartly called an ex show-girl. They did marry that month, in Los Angeles, and remained together until Armsby's death twelve years later.
Later years
Armsby's business life showed no sign of slowdown as he went into the 1940s. He remained involved with Curtiss-Wright and Universal Pictures, in fact was a defendant in an anti-trust case against the movie industry in the late 1930s. His death in 1942 was sudden, and the newspaper coverage paid tribute to his vast network of business activity and connections.
