| Sources |
- [S837] Obituary - Donald Kurtz, (Legacy), https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/legacyremembers/donald-julian-kurtz-obituary.
Donald Julian Kurtz was born and raised in Rock Hill, South Carolina, to the late Peggy and Ben Kurtz. Blessed at an early age with a good mind, inimitable charm, sophisticated tastes, and an inexorable drive to do big things, he set about making his mark on the world.
Donald's first love was Dixieland jazz. His interest began as a 78-rpm collector in the 1940s, at age 12 or so, which marked the beginning of what would become a massive collection, lifelong obsession, and major thread running through his life.
Another important thread was golf. Donald won his first championship at only 13 years old. When he was a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he won the championship at the Rock Hill Country Club, becoming their youngest winner ever.
After college, Donald was drafted into the US Army and spent two years stationed in Saigon. Far more important than winning the 1957 Southeast Asia Open golf tournament, however, was his sudden exposure to an interesting, intellectual, and cultured world beyond small-town South Carolina. Being in Vietnam (formerly French Indo-China) in the period of calm between the wars was a game changer, as he codified his vision of living a romantic, cosmopolitan lifestyle.
Upon his release of service in 1958, Donald moved to Europe. He traveled around meeting famous jazz musicians, having exceptional love affairs, eating great meals and drinking great wine, and going not only to France and Spain, but also to Bulgaria and Lebanon. He played in the 1959 Turkish Golf Open in Istanbul, saw the great soccer game between Fenerbahce from Ankara and Nice, witnessed historic, 'mano-a-mano' bullfights, and navigated a rowboat in the streets of Cannes when the dam ruptured. He met Hemingway in Pamplona, sat on the stage with Ella Fitzgerald at a Paris concert, and discovered steak tartare and couscous in the back streets of Nice.
In 1961, energized by his travels and filled with lofty ambitions, Donald moved to New York City to break into advertising. In addition to being a strong businessman and marketer, Donald was a phenomenal storyteller with a sense of humor to match, which made him a perfect fit for the personality-driven ad industry.
Donald learned the business at Benton & Bowles, Doyle Dane Bernbach, and Jack Tinker & Partners, but he soon outgrew his account management roles. In 1968, he opened his first ad agency, Kurtz Kambanis Symon.
In 1977, he joined forces with creative powerhouse, Dick Tarlow, to establish Kurtz & Tarlow, which Advertising Age repeatedly called the fastest-growing agency in the nation. They handled accounts for Cuisinart, Vanderbilt Fragrance, and Ralph Lauren, overseeing their expansion from Polo Fashions to icon of Americana, as well as the creation of Ralph Lauren Home Furnishings.
During this time, he met, married, and had a daughter, Sasha, with his first and only ex-wife, Mara Stoller (whose father, coincidently, also owned a NYC ad agency). He also became serious about playing chess, collecting art, drinking wine, designing fabulous homes, and hosting legendary dinner parties with dazzling women.
Never one to just dip his toe in, those interests became all-consuming passions. With chess, for example, poured over books, took lessons, memorized long opening sequences, and held his own in tournaments against Russian grandmasters. The highlight came when he beat Robert LeDonne; the chess world's best 6-year-old.
When Kurtz & Tarlow was sold in 1983 to an English firm, Geers Gross Advertising, Donald remained on the board and moved to London. Having fulfilled his advertising aspirations, he set his sights on turning his love of fine wine into a business and purchased a venerable old London wine company, "Greens, founded in 1783." He also launched Kurtz & Chan Wines, a fine and rare wine trader, and The London Wine Man, a traditional wine business.
By 1990 Donald was tired of living abroad and wanted to move back down South. He sold his businesses and settled in Charlotte, NC, near his two sisters and brothers-in-law, Judy and Henry Goldman and the late Brenda and Chuck Meltsner. There, he reimagined The London Wine Man as an importer and wholesaler. Appropriately, the company's philosophy was "We drink all we can and sell the rest."
Over the next two decades, Donald continued to travel, regularly visiting his daughter and son-in-law, Sasha and David Koren, in New York. He played golf, wrote his memoir, Old Dog, Old Tricks, entertained, joined the board of a wine and food charity, and even hosted his own jazz radio show, Dr. Jazz Makes a House Call.
When his granddaughter, Oona, was born in 2008, Donald moved back to New York to be close to her. And in an incredible stroke of luck, found an apartment right next door.
Donald passed away peacefully on June 27, 2024, surrounded by family, in his New York City home. He was 90. His passing has left a larger-than-life-sized hole in all our hearts.
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1933 - 2024 (91 years)
