Carol Doda
| Carol Doda | |
|---|---|
Doda in 1965
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| Born |
Carol Ann Doda August 29, 1937 Solano County, California, U.S. |
| Died | November 9, 2015 (aged 78) San Francisco, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Topless dancer |
| Children | 2 |
Carol Ann Doda (August 29, 1937 – November 9, 2015) was a topless dancer in San Francisco, California who was active from the 1960s through the 1980s. She was the first public topless dancer.
In 1964 Doda made international news, first by dancing topless at the city's Condor Club, then by enhancing her bust from size 34 to 44 through silicone injections. Her breasts became known as Doda's "twin 44s" and "the new Twin Peaks of San Francisco".
Doda was born August 29, 1937, in Solano County, California, and grew up in San Francisco. Her parents divorced when she was 3. Although private about her personal life, she said she dropped out of school and became a cocktail waitress at age 14.
Doda attended the San Francisco Art Institute and worked as a waitress and lounge entertainer at the Condor Club, at the corner of Broadway and Columbus in the North Beach section of San Francisco. Doda's act began with a grand piano being lowered from the ceiling by hydraulic motors; Doda would be atop the piano dancing, as it descended from a hole in the ceiling. She go-go danced "The Swim" to a rock and roll combo headed by Bobby Freeman as her piano settled on the stage. (In 1983 Assistant Manager James "Jimmy the Beard" Ferrozzo was crushed to death by the hydraulic piano while lying atop his naked stripper girlfriend, Theresa Hill.) From the waist up Doda emulated aquatic movements like the Australian crawl. She also performed The Twist, The Frug, and The Watusi.
On June 19, 1964, when Doda was 26 years old, the Condor's publicist, "Big" Davy Rosenberg gave Doda a "monokini" topless swimsuit designed by Rudi Gernreich. She performed topless that night, the first noted entertainer of the era to do so. The act was an instant success. Two months after she started her semi-nude performances, the rest of San Francisco's Broadway was topless, followed soon after by entertainers across America. Doda became an American cultural icon of the 1960s.Sly Stone was a young guitarist in the Condor's house band, but soon after Doda began performing topless he left. The Republican National Convention was held in San Francisco, during the summer of 1964; many of the delegates came to see Carol Doda. She was profiled in Tom Wolfe's 1968 book The Pump House Gang and appeared that same year as Sally Silicone in Head, the 1968 film created by Jack Nicholson and Bob Rafelson, and featuring The Monkees. The movie was produced by Columbia Pictures. She appeared in a Golden Boy parody with Annette Funicello, Sonny Liston, and Davy Jones.
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