I first visited San Francisco in late 1980, when my future spouse took me to the Mabuhay Gardens to check out local punk acts No Alternative and The Offs. It’s safe to say that my trip to North Beach was an eye-opener: I’d never seen anything quite like Baghdad-by-the-Bay’s Broadway, a haven of naughtiness filled with neon-lit joints like the Condor Club, where someone named Carol Doda featured prominently on the club’s towering and slightly risqué marquee.
The following spring, I moved to Oakland, and while I’d go on to spend many evenings at the Fab Mab and its sister venue On Broadway, I never once stepped foot inside the Condor (never mind Big Al’s). I was 18, and going to a girly show was decidedly square, a grubby old man’s game. The Condor’s reputation worsened a few years later, when a man and woman were crushed beneath its elevated piano, but I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.
Directed by Marlo McKenzie and Jonathan Parker, Carol Doda Topless at the Condor will take longtime Bay Area residents on a gritty trip down memory lane while providing newcomers with an introduction to one of the city’s legendary characters — one on par with Emperor Norton, Cyril Magnin and the San Francisco Twins. The documentary opens Friday, March 29, at Rialto Cinemas Elmwood and the Grand Lake Theatre.
Topless at the Condor details Carol Doda’s lengthy association with the club, beginning with her arrival in 1964 when she began working there as a cocktail waitress. Supplementing her waitressing with some improvisatory dancing, Doda became so popular that Condor management told her to take to the stage, where she promptly jumped atop a piano to leave room for singers Teddy & George and their live band.
In June 1964, she donned one of designer Rudi Gernreich’s notorious ‘monokinis‘ and began dancing topless; customers loved it, but the city fathers busted her for lewd and dissolute behavior in early 1965. Found not guilty, her acquittal drove even more traffic to the Condor, where Doda would rule supreme for the rest of the ’60s and beyond.
Unfortunately, McKenzie and Parker aren’t able to cast much light on Doda’s pre-San Francisco years: Carol held her secrets close and took them with her to the grave when she passed in 2015. All we know is that she was born in Vallejo in 1937, came from a broken home, was (perhaps?) divorced and had two children by an unknown father. Her accidental fame, however, stripped her of her cherished privacy.
Replete with footage of Doda and her fellow dancers gyrating their hearts out, Carol Doda Topless at the Condor also includes interviews with her surviving contemporaries, including former Congressman John Burton, musicians Squid Vicious and Jerry Martini, and several former dancers, club owners and bartenders. It’s an absolute gem that will have you longing for the sweetly sleazy North Beach of old.
