LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess) — Eric Gardner, industry veteran, artist manager and founder and CEO of Panacea Entertainment, passed away on July 19 at his home near Los Angeles. He was 74 years old.
Commenting on his passing, longtime client and bandleader Paul Shaffer said on social media, “I have lost a dear friend. My longtime manager Eric Gardner has passed away at his home outside Los Angeles. He represented me since 1990 and was everything you could hope for in a manager – smart, beautifully spoken, represented me in any field I wanted to dabble in and his advice was always wise and true.”
Gardner founded Panacea Entertainment in 1970 while a graduate student at Columbia University, coordinating tours for clients such as Jefferson Airplane and Kiss.
“There was no such thing as personal management back then,” Gardner said. “In the rock ‘n’ roll world, you had your neighbor, your friend’s brother, your drug dealer. That worked to my advantage. When I got into the rock ‘n’ roll world, no one could argue that I was doing anything wrong,” Gardner told NCOPM’s Clinton Billups in a 2018 interview.
In 1974, the company transitioned into artist management, building a client roster that included Bill Wyman, Timothy Leary, Todd Rundgren, The Stray Cats, Jefferson Starship, Blue Öyster Cult and Bettye LaVette.
In the 1980s, Panacea relocated from New York to Los Angeles and expanded into film and television, signing TV personality Elvira Mistress of the Dark.
Gardner was inducted into the Personal Manager Hall of Fame in 2017.
