Many San Franciscans are mourning the loss of legendary San Francisco performer Carol Doda, who helped introduce topless entertainment more than 50 years ago. She died at age 78 of complications related to kidney failure.
Doda first went topless in 1964 at the Condor Club. Soon every nightspot on Broadway in North Beach followed suit.
"Isn't it intriguing to live in a city in which one of the most prominent citizens is a topless dancer?" said Ernest Baile, an author who wrote about Doda in Sketches from a North Beach Journal.
"Let me put it this way: women have been baring their breasts in San Francisco since the Gold Rush ... what Carol brought to the table was kind of a classy night-club act that she brought to the Condor," Baile said. "She did it with dignity."
Baile added, "San Francisco has a long history of wanting to be naughty and nice at the same time, and when I think of Carol Doda, I think of somebody who was naughty but nice."