Tony Etz, a 30-year veteran of the Inventive Artists Company, handed away yesterday, March 10, in Los Angeles, after a protracted battle with Chordoma, a uncommon sort of most cancers. He was 64.
Agenting was a second profession for Etz, an English main from Knox School with a MFA from College of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop who was a contributor on the 1989 e book Off-Hollywood Motion pictures: A Movie Lover’s Information. He began within the made-for-television film enterprise, co-executive producing/government producing two miniseries and 5 telefilms, together with NBC’s profitable Jack Reed MOWs, within the early Nineties earlier than becoming a member of CAA in 1994 as an agent within the Tv division.
Throughout his three a long time on the company, Etz established himself as a high TV lit agent and served in varied management roles, together with co-head of packaging. Whilst his well being was deteriorating over the previous couple of years, he continued to work and remained a fixture on the CAA workplaces in Century Metropolis till the top.
He additionally maintained his dry humorousness, responding to a “hope you’re properly” textual content final Could with, “I’m nonetheless ambulatory so I believe that qualifies as properly!”
Dealing with his personal mortality, Etz made an uncommon request virtually two years in the past: he requested to jot down his personal obituary. Right here is how he summed up his profession in two sentences:
“Over 30 years as a packaging agent, I used to be foundational within the sale of Jackass, Home, Misplaced, Rescue Me, Massive Little Lies, Jury Responsibility and Tracker and dozens of different exhibits,” he wrote. “And I’ve been a proud citizen of the most effective metropolis state within the enterprise.”
All through his profession, Etz, who additionally was concerned within the packaging of Gray’s Anatomy, Brothers and Sisters and Band of Brothers, represented many high writers, administrators, actors, and producers, a few of them for many years. His longtime shoppers embody Paul Attanasio, creator of Murder and co-creator of Bull; Peter Tolan, co-creator of Rescue Me and The Job; and Jackass co-creator/star Johnny Knoxville.
“As a buddy, Tony is deeply mourned,” Tolan mentioned. “As an agent, he’s irreplaceable; he defended these of us who had been lucky sufficient to be his shoppers with a ferocity most of our personal moms could be unable to duplicate.”
Attanasio remembered Etz as a “lovely soul.”
“I believe individuals exterior the enterprise don’t actually perceive what being an agent is,” he mentioned. “Once you do it proper, it’s about love: all giving and no taking. Tony understood me in a means I couldn’t (and nonetheless can’t) perceive myself. He had the sensitivity to know what was distinctive to me (which I’d always doubt) however then the breadth of imaginative and prescient to know how that match within the bigger world (which I didn’t perceive in any respect). That was the key ingredient in no matter I used to be in a position to accomplish in tv. I couldn’t have accomplished it with out him.”
However Etz’s most vital relationship at CAA was with fellow TV agent Nancy Etz, nee Axelrode, whom he married in 1999 on the Wilshire Ebell Theatre.
Not surprisingly, their son Alex, who made his TV trade debut on the TCA winter press tour at age three months, adopted in his mother and father footsteps and, upon graduating from College of Michigan in 2024, joined CAA within the mailroom.
Final 12 months marked one other CAA milestone for Tony Etz — 30 years on the company. The anniversary was celebrated in late fall with a giant gathering of your entire TV division.
Etz cherished to journey and was an avid reader, together with of Deadline, placing his English diploma to make use of by sending occasional notes on headlines, context and typos signed, “trustworthy reader.”
He was additionally lover of music (significantly obscure British pop bands), and longtime season ticket holder to the Los Angeles Lakers. A protracted-suffering Chicago Cubs fan, Etz famously cried when the Cubs received the World Collection in 2016.
A proud fourth technology Knox School alumnus, Etz was appointed the Chairman of the Knox School Board of Trustees in 2022. He had additionally served as an adjunct professor on the College of Southern California since 2011.
In 2024, Knox School introduced the launch of the Etz Household Institute for Civic Management and Dialogue, which prepares college students to work throughout variations and have the troublesome dialogues essential to create lasting and constructive change.
Etz is survived by his spouse Nancy and son Alex; brother David; sister Kathy; sister Sara and brother-in-law Joni Mendonca; brother-in-law and sister-in-law Dr. Stephen and Marla Axelrode; nephews Issac Graham, Lucas Mendonca, and Justin Axelrode; and nieces Madison Axelrode and Anna Mendonca.
Donations in Tony Etz’s reminiscence might be made to the Knox Fund at knox.edu/give, or through mail at Workplace of Development, Knox School, Campus Field K230, 2 E South Avenue, Galesburg, IL 61401.
