Dear Constant Reader,
Last week I saw the documentary Carol Doda Topless at the Condor. By the way, what a pleasure it is to see a movie in a theatre! I found out the movie was playing near us at about the last minute and I’m glad the timing worked out so that we were able to see it. It’s not about burlesque per se, but the transitional period of adult entertainment between burlesque and the neo-burlesque revival.
Carol Doda was a cocktail waitress at the San Francisco night spot the Condor Club in North Beach in the early 1960s. Once the management saw how well the audience reacted to her dancing to the band, they had her dance on stage, or rather on the piano, since there wasn’t room on stage. One of the owners decided that the piano should descend from the ceiling with Carol on it and that became her signature.
On June 19, 1964 Carol Doda donned a monokini (topless swimsuit) and descended on the piano into history as the first topless dancer. A topless craze followed which changed the trajectory of entertainment. San Francisco became a mecca for tourists and conventioneers and the Condor was the hottest night spot. Carol Doda was so synonymous with the Condor that a giant image of her adorned the exterior of the club (with flashing red lights for nipples) as well as her name, seemingly where ever there was a blank bit of wall.
The documentary consists of archival footage (of which there is an absolute wealth), present day interviews with people who knew Carol, and modern academics to put parts of the story into context. Although the main subject of the documentary is obviously Carol Doda and her role as the pioneering topless and then bottomless dancer, there are other topics to flesh out the story, such as Rudi Gernreich, the futurist fashion designer who created the monokini*, the origins of The Swim dance, nightlife in North Beach, local musicians, interracial relationships (with some very painful stories), the myth of bra burning, &c. It doesn’t always mesh with the main theme of the film, but it’s all interesting.
One of the most important subjects of the film was Carol Doda’s breasts. When she first became a sensation, she had modestly-sized breasts, but, knowing that as topless dancing became more common, she needed to set herself apart from all the others. Thus she opted** to enlarge her breasts. At the time that meant silicone injections. Be warned: there is some seriously disturbing contemporary footage of a woman undergoing the procedure and a horrific story from one of the interviewees. Carol endured 44 shots of silicone, until even her doctor was telling her to stop, bringing her bust to a 44DD.
Both she and the Condor were massive successes. They had a symbiotic relationship, which ended when Carol asked for more pay for her twelve shows a night. She also asked to buy into the club (which one of the owners laughingly dismissed, even today). She left, but the Condor continued to use her name and likeness and thrived. Eventually she returned, having never found the same success elsewhere.
In 1969 she went bottomless, again the first to do so. Her arrests for indecency had lead to a judicial verdict that topless dancing was legal, but bottomless dancing was eventually ruled illegal by the California Alcoholic Beverages Commission.
She worked as an adult entertainer until the mid-’80s, as North Beach became sleazier and the almost innocent fun of topless go-go dancing to a live band was replaced with full nude dancing to canned music, live sex shows, and porn movies. She continued performing, albeit with her clothes on, for most of the rest of her life, even as her health failed. As you’ve probably suspected, the health issues that caused her death in 2015 were related to those silicone shots decades before.
Although we see Carol, often in her own words, as an entertainer, an advocate for free expression, and a business woman, we never really get to know her. She’s funny and charismatic, but when the subject of her personal life comes up, she deflects or makes a joke. Any attempt to learn anything about her family or her past is quickly shut down. Even those who knew her personally didn’t really know much of Carol beyond the stage.
There’s a theme in the film that Carol helped create the zeitgeist of the 1960s, but perhaps she was more of a product of it. Did the court ruling that her topless dancing was self-expression and not indecency lead to the Summer of Love or was the verdict because San Francisco was already headed that way? Was she a product of the male gaze or did she subvert it for her own purposes? In any case, there is no doubt that she was a trailblazer in the world of adult entertainment and freedom of expression.
The documentary is a love letter to Carol Doda and the North Beach entertainment scene. We also learn about some of her contemporary dancers and friends. I was particularly intrigued by the stories from Judy Mamou, who as Tara, danced with a topless monkey! If the film comes to your area, do go see it.
*Ironically, he created the topless swimsuit because he felt a woman’s body should not be sexualized.
** With some pressure from the club’s publicist.
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