Bethesda legend Tommy Curtis has died; famous matchmaker of Yacht Club of Bethesda, movie mogul

I had heard from a couple of sources that Bethesda's legendary Tommy Curtis had passed away, and WTOP has just confirmed he died at his Bethesda home on May 5. Tommy "The Matchmaker" Curtis was best known in our community for his phenomenally-successful Yacht Club of Bethesda singles bar, which was in the lower level of the Holiday Inn on Wisconsin Avenue in downtown Bethesda.

Back when there was actually nightlife in downtown Bethesda, crowds would gather on the sidewalk along Woodmont Avenue to get into the Yacht Club. In today's moribund nighttime economy, Curtis' famous lounge space sits vacant in what is today known as The Bethesdan Hotel.

Curtis was also known for his local TV and radio appearances over the decades. But to the nation and the world, Tommy Curtis was also a movie mogul. His production credits included a couple of major 1980s releases with household-name stars: Dreamscape starring Dennis Quaid and Kate Capshaw, and The Seduction featuring Morgan Fairchild.

Plaque above lobby elevator at
The Bethesdan Hotel that still mentions
the Yacht Club of Bethesda, which was
downstairs when it was a Holiday Inn, decades later

I was honored to learn that Tommy Curtis was a regular reader of my blog. He even passed along some tips, and I was able to give readers the benefit of feature stories on some of the many occasions he made news in recent years that he gave me the exclusive first word on. To a lifelong resident of Bethesda in this time period, Curtis was one of the elite celebrities in our area, and I could not have imagined watching the old Yacht Club TV commercials that one day The Matchmaker himself would be following my own creative output.

Tommy Curtis was 75, and his brother told WTOP that he had "a history of heart-related problems." But as recently as a few months ago, he was in good spirits and excited about new projects he was working on both in our area, and in Hollywood. Perhaps some of those will still come to fruition under his associates. And perhaps Curtis is now in a good position to get us some divine intervention to restore nightlife in downtown Bethesda to its former greatness. On that, nobody was a higher authority than Tommy Curtis.

Top photo courtesy of Tommy Curtis