“I always just wanted to give people a good time.” Those are the words of Carol Doda, the busty blonde babe who has the distinction of being the first topless dancer in the United States. The daughter of parents who divorced when she was three, Carol grew up in San Francisco and ended up dropping out of school at age fourteen. She got a job as a cocktail waitress and was able to enroll in the San Francisco Art Institute while working at the Condor Club. One fateful day in 1964 when she was just nineteen, Carol took off her top while dancing, and history was made. More than once, actually, because not only was she also the first exotic dancer to enhance her breasts with silicone, taking her from a 34B to a size 44D, but it’s her eventual full nudity that led to a 1972 law that forbid total nude dancing in public places that served liquor. As one of the 1960s most famous sex symbols, it should be no surprise that Carol made more than a few on-screen appearances both as herself and in acting roles, including on the morning television talk show hosted by infamous stripper Gypsy Rose Lee (1965-1968), the Monkees psychedelic Head (1968), and even two episodes of the series Nash Bridges (1998). But what is a surprise is that it took until 2024 to get a documentary made about her, with lots of fantastic footage of her funbags from her dancing days. It was released 9 years after the amazing icon died of kidney failure, introducing a new generation of Skin fans to the juicy jugs that started a whole genre.
