Tony Etz, a 30-year veteran of the Creative Artists Agency, passed away yesterday, March 10, in Los Angeles, after a long battle with Chordoma, a rare type of cancer. He was 64. Agenting was a second career for Illinois native Etz, an English major from Knox College with a MFA from University of Iowa’s Writers’ […]Tony Etz, a 30-year veteran of the Creative Artists Agency, passed away yesterday, March 10, in Los Angeles, after a long battle with Chordoma, a rare type of cancer. He was 64. Agenting was a second career for Illinois native Etz, an English major from Knox College with a MFA from University of Iowa’s Writers’
Tony Etz, a 30-year veteran of the Creative Artists Agency, passed away yesterday, March 10, in Los Angeles, after a long battle with Chordoma, a rare type of cancer. He was 64.
Agenting was a second career for Illinois native Etz, an English major from Knox College with a MFA from University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop who was a contributor on the 1989 book Off-Hollywood Movies: A Film Lover’s Guide. He started in the made-for-television movie business, co-executive producing/executive producing two miniseries and five telefilms, including NBC’s successful Jack Reed MOWs, in the early 1990s before joining CAA in 1994 as an agent in the Television department.
During his three decades at the agency, Etz established himself as a top TV lit agent and served in various leadership roles, including co-head of packaging. Even as his health was deteriorating over the past couple of years, he continued to work and remained a fixture at the CAA offices in Century City until the end.
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He also maintained his dry sense of humor, responding to a “hope you’re well” text last May with, “I’m still ambulatory so I think that qualifies as well!”
Facing his own mortality, Etz made an unusual request almost two years ago: he asked to write his own obituary. Here is how he summed up his career in two sentences:
“Over 30 years as a packaging agent, I was foundational in the sale of Jackass, House, Lost, Rescue Me, Big Little Lies, Jury Duty and Tracker and dozens of other shows,” he wrote. “And I have been a proud citizen of the best city state in the business.”
Throughout his career, Etz, who also was involved in the packaging of Grey’s Anatomy, Brothers and Sisters and Band of Brothers, represented many top writers, directors, actors, and producers, some of them for decades. His longtime clients include Paul Attanasio, creator of Homicide and co-creator of Bull; Peter Tolan, co-creator of Rescue Me and The Job; and Jackass co-creator/star Johnny Knoxville.
“As a friend, Tony is deeply mourned,” Tolan said. “As an agent, he is irreplaceable; he defended those of us who were fortunate enough to be his clients with a ferocity most of our own mothers would be unable to duplicate.”
Attanasio remembered Etz as a “beautiful soul.”
“I think people outside the business don’t really understand what being an agent is,” he said. “When you do it right, it’s about love: all giving and no taking. Tony understood me in a way I couldn’t (and still can’t) understand myself. He had the sensitivity to understand what was unique to me (which I would constantly doubt) but then the breadth of vision to understand how that fit in the larger world (which I didn’t understand at all). That was the secret ingredient in whatever I was able to accomplish in television. I couldn’t have done it without him.” (You can read his full tribute here.)
But Etz’s most important relationship at CAA was with fellow TV agent Nancy Etz, née Axelrode, whom he married in 1999 at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre.
Not surprisingly, their son Alex, who made his TV industry debut at the TCA winter press tour at age three months, followed in his parents footsteps and, upon graduating from University of Michigan in 2024, joined CAA in the mailroom.
Last year marked another CAA milestone for Tony Etz — 30 years at the agency. The anniversary was celebrated in late fall with a big gathering of the entire TV department.
Etz loved to travel and was an avid reader, including of Deadline, putting his English degree to use by sending occasional notes on headlines, context and typos signed, “faithful reader.”
He was also lover of music — particularly obscure British pop bands — and longtime season-ticket holder to the Los Angeles Lakers. A long-suffering Chicago Cubs fan, Etz famously cried when the team won the World Series in 2016.
A proud fourth-generation Knox College alumnus, Etz was appointed the Chairman of the Knox College Board of Trustees in 2022. He had also served as an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California since 2011.
In 2024, Knox College announced the launch of the Etz Family Institute for Civic Leadership and Dialogue, which prepares students to work across differences and have the difficult dialogues necessary to create lasting and positive change.
Etz is survived by his wife 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 memory can be made to the Knox Fund or via mail at Office of Advancement, Knox College, Campus Box K230, 2 E South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401.