OBITUARIES : David Rosenberg, Self-Styled Creator of Topless Scene

David (Davey) Rosenberg, who credited himself with practically inventing the topless dancing scene on San Francisco’s raunchy Broadway, has died at the age of 49.

Rosenberg was a wheeling, dealing promoter whose blatant publicity stunts helped make Carol Doda the top star of the topless dancing era of the mid-1960s. He once persuaded Doda to impress her bare bosom in wet cement in front of the Condor Club to “immortalize” the nightspot where she first danced topless June 19, 1964.

Rosenberg complained of shortness of breath while riding in a taxi in downtown San Francisco last Thursday. The driver took him directly to St. Francis Memorial Hospital where, officials said, he died a short time later of apparent heart failure.

At one time, Rosenberg was press agent for six of the topless clubs on Broadway. He billed himself as “The World’s Greatest Press Agent,” in part because at 400 pounds he was almost certainly the greatest in girth. He once was described as “a belly closely followed by a man,” a characterization Rosenberg said he greatly admired.

Because his father suffered from heart disease, Rosenberg had for the last several years devoted himself to running the family’s newsstand, Harold’s Hometown News Service. His father, Philip Rosenberg, survives him.