35-year-old Nightlife director Matt Bendik, has been found dead in a Philadelphia hotel room; Bendik –a managing partner of AV and Voyeur/DBA nightclubs in Los Angeles –was also the boyfriend of Glee star Becca Tobin.
The Philadelphia Medical Examiner confirmed that Bendik’s body had been found, but would give no further details. According to the report, a hotel maid found the body of Bendik, a 35-year-old nightclub owner, in his hotel room on the afternoon of Thursday, July 10. Sources told TMZ that Tobin, 28, who plays Kitty Wilde on the FOX TV series, was accompanying Bendik on his business trip to the city.
According to media outlets, reported that the couple had spent the evening of Wednesday, July 9, out on the town friends, and everything appeared normal.
He was also “Director of Nightlife” at Modern Honolulu’s ADDICTION nightclub.
He knew early on his nightlife ambition; but like any start it wasn’t easy, he definitely went through ropes from doing everything there is to do in a nightclub, even bartending. When he was a freshman in high school, Bendik strutted up to a group of high school seniors who organized weekly parties in a shuttered church in Hollywood. The year was 1997.
Of his experience he said
“I said to them, ‘You guys are the coolest. How can I help? I want to learn.’ One older boy, who arranged the rental of the church for their late-night DJ all-ages party, said ‘Come back here after the party and we’ll start you out.’ I showed up at 2 a.m. and they handed me a stack of garbage bags.”
After spending a few months cleaning up after unruly teens, said seniors departed high school for college and to “make good” on their dreams. But not before proposing an offer to Bendik: Buy the business. For a few hundred dollars, he acquired the party list, the contract to the church rental, some DJ equipment and speakers. He was, in his own words, a “made man.” Cut to the first weekend in his sophomore year in high school; Bendick walks into his parents’ house shortly after midnight and unloads the contents of his cargo pants onto the kitchen table.
“My parents look at the stack of bills – there was over $10,000 dollars. Naturally, they immediately thought I was into something illegal,” “It took a few weeks to convince them there were zero drugs. No alcohol. Just kids coming to listen to music, dance and cut loose for a few hours.
At 15 years old, Bendik was now organizing and promoting two nights a week in Los Angeles; there wasn’t a teenager in town. During the mid-2000s while he attended college at Cornell University School of Hotel Administration he ended up working at some of the hottest clubs in New York City and Las Vegas.
The evening entrepreneur, conquered the nightlife in Hollywood ad owned several nightclubs. “He as single-handedly elevated the nightlife scene in the Pacific” A review reads about his work.
Despite working in the nightclub industry, Mark wasn’t a ‘partier’, reports claim, after speaking to pals. The couple regularly uploaded snaps of themselves looking all loved up to their Instagram accounts – with the most recent posted just a couple of days ago.
Bendik’s unexpected and unexplained death comes just days before the anniversary of another tragic Glee passing. Sunday, July 13, will mark a year since Cory Monteith’s sad death to drug overdose.
Our condolences to his family, friends and the lovely Becca Tobin.
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