Dave Ettlin

David Michael Ettlin (born January 1946) is a Baltimore native, and graduate of Baltimore City College high school (1963) and what is now Baltimore City Community College and Towson University. He began working at The Baltimore Sun in newsroom clerical positions while in college in 1967, and went on to become a reporter, rewrite man and eventually night metropolitan editor. He retired in 2007 after a 40-year career, just in time for his friend and former colleague David Simon to write him into the script of his HBO series "The Wire." He appeared in cameos as rewrite man "Dave Ettlin" in three episodes, including the series finale. Ettlin has also appeared as an extra in the 1979 film "And Justice for All," walking down a courthouse stairway; and as a barely-visible patron in a Baltimore tavern in an early episode of the NBC-TV series "Homicide: Life on the Street." Ettlin lives in Pasadena, Md., with his wife, Bonnie J. Schupp, photographer, writer and retired middle school teacher.