Carol Doda | Iconic stripper, 78

Legendary stripper Carol Doda, 78, who helped introduce topless entertainment more than 50 years ago, died Monday in San Francisco of complications related to kidney failure.

"She launched the topless craze that swept San Francisco and the nation in the 1960s," Ernie Beyl, a historian and author, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Ms. Doda went topless in 1964 at San Francisco's Condor Club and soon changed every nightspot on busy Broadway.

Ms. Doda, known for her augmented bust (silicone injections were a new procedure then), rode onto stage atop a piano on an elevator platform, debuting the same day President Lyndon B. Johnson drew half a million people in a visit to San Francisco. It wasn't long before the big news in town was "the Girl on the Piano."

"The minute I knew I existed in life was the night I started the Condor thing," she told the Chronicle in 2009. "The only thing that mattered to me was entertaining people. That always drove me."

Ms. Doda, who never married, was arrested only once, in 1965, when police raided the Condor, according to the Chronicle. She was found not guilty and continued to dance until 1985, when she quit in a dispute over pay. She then started a lingerie shop.

"Underneath this blond hair, I do think logically," she said. "I know how to survive." - AP